


Creatures Such As We

by deepestfathoms



Category: The Prom (2020), The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Anxiety, Bullying, Child Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Harassment, Kevin is a himbo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms
Summary: In a world where people have wings, Emma Nolan has too much.Everyone is born with wings from one of the four tribes: Avems, Cimexes, Hydras, or Vespers. If you don't have any, you're apart of the Flightless. If you're mixed, then you're a hybrid. It's that simple.Everyone made fun of Emma, and if she realized this, she never did anything about it. She just went about her life, getting her ears pulled on and feathers torn out and slurs called her way. She had no choice, as this was the life of a hybrid. Forever and always.But when a kindhearted peacock pheasant Avem and a bold butterfly Cimex, as well as a motherly duo of teachers, come along, Emma is shown kindness for the first time in her life. And she cherishes it, even if it all bleeds out through her claws in the end.———Rewritten for a new format!!
Relationships: Emma Nolan & Kevin (The Prom Musical), Emma Nolan & Shelby (The Prom Musical), Kevin/Shelby (The Prom Musical)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Beowulf’s Guide To The Avian Race

**Avems**

**Description:** Feathered wings, crest feathers, and tail feathers of varying colors depending on the bird they take after; tufts of feathers on ears; talons on their hands and feet; two eyelids Abilities: Heightened sight; generally strong fighters and fliers; powerful talons; projectile feathers on wings and tail

**Classification:** Male- Rooster/cockerel; Females- Pullet/hen; Non-binary folk- Ave; Children- Chick

**Goddess:** Abiel

**Facts:**

-Avems are the most common species of avians, making up around almost half of the population. Their genes are very dominant, and any children between an Avem and a different avian tend to have feathered wings.

-The certain bird an avian has the wings of is not based on their parents (example: a mallard -duck and a cuckoo bird could have a scarlet macaw child). It's very rare that a child actually takes the wings of their parents.

-The rarest kind of wings an Avem can have are as followed: caladrius, roc, phoenix, lightning bird, thunderbird, Quetzalcoatlus, pterodactyl, pteranodon, and any extinct bird species.

-Quetzalcoatlus, pterodactyl, and pteranodon are actually quite controversial in the avian community, as some Avems don't see them as one of them and rather Hydras, while others do consider them Avems, despite lacking any feathers.

-There used to be a class system among Avem communities, where the prettiest wingers would be treated better than those with more muted colors. Brown was specifically a hated color, despite a good chunk of Avems having brown somewhere in their wings. This class system has since been torn down over the years, but some feathers still consider those with prettier, brighter colors better than others.

-Avems are less likely to tap into their instincts, unlike the other species of avians. They retain their humanity much better.

-The bird each Avems takes after is highly worshipped between those with those kinds of wings.

-No Avem eats any kind of poultry, even those with the wings of a bird of prey. The consumption of eggs usually varies from Avem to Avem.

-Nesting season is a certain time of the year where Avems, specifically expecting or generally maternal hens, become ten times more anxious and aware of their surroundings. Nobody really knows why it happens, but it causes them to become supremely protective over their flock and sometimes even aggressive. Mother hens tend to be more affected by this season.

-Mother hens do not sit on their chicks, although jokes are made about this anyway. Instead, they fold/hood their wings in front of themselves so their chicks will be covered at their sides. This is for protection, warmth, and comfort.

-Avems are big on learning how to fly as soon as possible, as they worship the sky more than the other species of avians. Most chicks learn to fly before the age of ten.

-Avems are intensely community-based, everyone takes care of each other in a very genuine way, which is why flocks are a thing in the first place.

-Even if you can't fly with them, the appearance of wings is important. Grounded Avems will put extra care into making them clean/pretty to compensate for lack of flight. The Avem community is very caring towards grounded feathers and all usually pitch in to help out whenever they can.

-However, the Flightless are seen as disgraces and are usually thrown out of flocks. The lack of an ability to fly and no wings is too much for them.

-Baby Avems are born with fluffy down on their wings and then grow in their flight and adult feathers as they get older.

-They are praised for their vocal talents.

-Birds of prey have the strongest talons, the most powerful being a harpy eagle Avem. They can grip something so tightly that they can crush certain bones.

-Gifting feathers is a common form of courting.

-They will also do mating dances to attract a partner. They always make sure to have their wings clean, pristine, and very shiny for the event. Two courting Avems (or one Avem and a different species) will also do a special sky dance to declare their relationship.

-A large chunk of Avem culture in general puts a LOT of importance on the ability to fly. The common feather belief is that they were the original and purest avians and that all the other species flew too low and were changed in some way (Hydras became too infatuated with the wealth and jewels in the earth, making them greedy and cunning; Cimexs flew too low and grew too attached to nature; Vespers flew too long under the moon and became addled by them; Flightless' simply flew too little and lost their gift of wings completely), while Avems retained their true colors and flying prowess.

-However, because they are technically the original species, they have not evolved to have many abilities, unlike the other races.

**Hydras**

**Description:** Scaled wings with various colors and patterns; webbed frills behind their ears and protruding out of their skull; horns; claws on their hands and feet; scales stretching up their back and on their palms; pointed ears; two eyelids

**Abilities:** Heightened sense of smell; extended barbs from wingtips; firebreath and frostbreath

**Classification:** Male- Drake; Female- Dragoness; Non-binary folk- Draco; Children- Wyrm

**Goddess:** Haniel

**Facts:**

-The color of their wings does not depend on parents, like all other avians.

-Horns vary from Hydra to Hydra.

-Hydras are the most successful species in preserving their customs and culture. It's very well documented and taught to wyrms.

-Hydras have a love for tapestries, weavings, and other forms of art. They are especially fond of entertainers and theater.

-They are also the most dedicated to fashion out of all the species.

-The Hydra attitude is very much "protect your own", which covers immediate neighbors. This leads to Hydras usually being hyper-aware of everyone around them, for better or for worse.

-Gift giving is a pretty big part of the Hydra community. Genuinely not accepting a gift is completely unheard of, no matter how unwanted the gift is or any personal feelings between the gift-giver and the recipient.

-Pawning your trash off on another avian under the guise of a gift is extremely trashy and rude, and a good way to sink your reputation.

-Storytelling parties are very much a thing with this species, as a lot of Hydras bond that way, planning a time to get together and share gossip and news.

-It's pretty much guaranteed that if you give information to a Hydra, it's going to get around, in some way or form, possibly ending up as some tall tale along the way.

-Mother dragons tend to be the most protective out of all species, with mother hens coming in a close second. Like hens, they will hood their wyrms with their wings and will flare their frills when intimidated. They are also very prone to attack if they feel that their young are being threatened and don't let up until the enemy is dead or far away.

-When a Hydra would die, the body would be wrapped up in fine silk and coated in gemstones, favorite personal belongings, and dead prey. They do not bury their dead, but instead go to a very special ceremony site and give the body up on a flat stone as an offering to the gods, signifying that "hey, they're dead, they're for you now" and send up their spirits to the afterlife. The prey is to attract the spirits and gods and bring attention. Lavish memorial parties would then be thrown at sunset and can last hours into the early morning.

-As the stereotype suggests, scales are very fond of treasure, but they tend to be very picky. Gold and copper are seen as cheap. Silver and quartz are highly valued. Colorful jewels like amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and Jules are commonly used in jewelry.

-That's another thing-- they LOVE jewelry. Horn bands are popular because they don't get in the way when flying. Wing bands are also sometimes worn, but they can be heavy and make flying difficult. Most Hydras would rather use gemstone laces on their wings.

-Getting tattoos and gemstones embedded in wings is quite common, although painful at first. Some scales even dye/bleach their wings, but the result can cause the scales to burn and fall off over time.

-The barbs in their wingtips are made of a compound mixed from shedded scales and bone. These barbs are full of blood and marrow and break easily. They take a few days to grow back if broken off.

-Hydras will gift a scale as a courting method. They will also actually put the scale of their mate underneath their tongue to let it dissolve in their mouth.

-No matter where a child comes from, or even the species, all Hydras watch out for younger avians and make sure they stay safe and protected. Even the Flightless and hybrids.

-Because of this, scales tend to be the nicest species towards hybrids.

**Cimexs**

**Description:** Insect wings of varying shape, sizes, and color depending on bug type; four arms; antennae; chitin along the back and on palms, but fuzz if the Cimex is a moth; short, curved claws; retractable mandibles in mouths; two eyelids

**Abilities:** Moth and butterfly Cimexs can spin silk from their wrists; bee, hornet, wasp, and yellowjacket Cimexs can extend stingers from their wrists to inject a paralyzing nerve toxin into enemies; all other Cimexs can have itching acid in their mandibles (like an ant), venomous barbs that extend over their fingertips like another set of claws, venomous teeth, acid-spitting glands in mouth, or stingers in their wingtips.

**Classification:** Male- Beckett; Female- Monarch; Non-binary folk- Inescta; Child- Nymphs

**Goddess:** Cygiel

**Facts:**

-Their blood varies from blue, green, or yellow, but never red. This also means tongues, scabs/wounds, blushes, and insides are either blue, green, or yellow.

-Cimexs are the most diverse race when it comes to appearance because of all the varying wing shapes.

-The mandibles in their mouth are retractable. They grow from their bottom jaw, behind their teeth, and fold into little glands at the bottom of their mouths when not in use. These mandibles are usually quite spiky and smooth and can dig all the way down to the bone.

-Mandible bites itch like an ant bite because they secrete an acidic venom into the skin when in contact with it.

-Mandibles are also barbed, so they do just as much damage going out as they do going in.

-Moth and butterfly Cimexs are born without wings but have two colorful bumps on their backs. When they become of age, they spin cocoons and stay inside them for seven days. During this process, their organs liquidate themselves and rearrange into a new, stronger system. Because of this, it is dangerous to disturb a cocoon during metamorphosis because it could harm the Cimex inside.

-Several butterflies and moths make a living by spinning silk and making things out of it to sell.

-Cimex wings are the easiest to damage but heal within hours.

-They are the only avians that can hover (minus moths and butterflies).

-Silk glands are located right below the hand on the wrist. They're thin slices that sort of look like paper cuts.

-Butterflies and moths need to spin silk at least once a day to keep their glands from getting clogged up. This could lead to clumping in the silk passage, swelling of the wrists, tenderness, and a lot of pain and discomfort when moving the hands.

-Bee, wasp, hornet, and yellowjacket avians do "waggle dances" like bees do.

-Their antennae predict the weather and sense vibrations in the air.

-They are able to twist their wings during flight. By doing so, they can preserve and even control the quantity of lift they generate.

-Dragonfly Cimexs have selective attention and are able to lock onto something and eliminate everything else around that one thing.

-Most wings are waterproof.

-Moth and butterfly Cimexs make these bracelets called Infinity Bands with their silk. These bracelets symbolize eternal love between two mates and they're usually made with beads and small gemstones. They're like wedding rings of sorts, but there's also platonic Infinity Bands.

**Vespertilios**

**Description:** Bat wings of varying size and color; large bat ears; fangs; opposable fingers on wings called dewclaws; retractable talons in their feet and hands; prehensile tongues; bobtail or rat-like tail; two eyelids

**Abilities:** Night vision; echolocation; blood and raw meat consumption without getting sick; a special moon power depending on what moon they were born under: New moon- Precognition, Crescent moon- Empathy, Half moon- Clairvoyance, Gibbous moon- Telepathy, Full moon- Mind reading

**Classification:** Male- Sire; Female- Vixen; Non-binary folk- Nolan; Child- Pup

**Goddess:** Valtiel

**Facts:**

-Upon drinking a creature's blood, a Vesper's special stomach acid will kill the bacteria, making it safe to digest. The kidney will then turn the blood into a plasma, which is excreted out of the cloaca. Plasma appears as a thick black liquid.

-Bloody Marys have actual blood in them. They're made specifically for Vespers to drink. This, however, does not stop other avians from thinking they can drink it. They usually get sick as a result, as they cannot urinate out the blood plasma like Vespers can.

-Pups are born with tiny fangs that grow longer as they get older.

-Most pups can't be breastfed because they would bite their mother's breast and drink her blood.

-Vesper wings are made up entirely of skin with a thin layer of fuzz on certain Vespers. Their bones, membranes, and blood vessels are visible. Because of this, they are the only avian race capable of getting sunburned on their wings.

-Bat flies are a problem for Vespers. The bugs like to cling to their wings in swarms and drink their blood. It's kinda gross to see and it's very painful for the poor Vesper infested with them.

-Vespers enjoy hanging upside down.

-Vespers feel most secure when they're swaddled by things. It's an instinct that they never grow out of, so it's not just a pup trait.

-They also like to suck on things. Fingers or their own dewclaws are a common thing they will suck on.

-There are entire shops dedicated to selling the best bugs for Vespers to eat. They are, of course, Vesper-owned businesses because no other race would want to have such a profession.

-Deaf Vespers can still use echolocation and are actually better at it than hearing Vespers because they can focus more intently on the vibrations.

-Despite bats being the number one carrier of rabies, Vespers are completely immune to the disease. This, however, does not stop people from saying otherwise and still claiming they will infect others.

-Like butterfly and moth Cimexs, dust and pollen tend to stick to the wings of Vespers.

-Vespers have more flexibility and control over their wings compared to other avians, letting them turn more smoothly.

-Vespers enjoy eating fruits, nectars, and bugs. Bugs are their favorite food. Many Cimexes don't like them because of this.

-Several Vespers wear sunglasses or simply keep their eyes closed when outside because of how sensitive they are to bright lights.

-They will "wing" their ears around their face to keep themselves cool.

-Vespers will catch the most colorful butterfly in the area and give the wings to their mate as a courting technique, then the two will eat the body together since butterflies symbolize love in their culture. They may also drink each other's blood as a marking of sorts.

-Vespers have long, thick talons on their feet for hanging upside down. These talons are usually around six to seven inches in size, one and a half inches in width, and are hooked, sort of like a raptor's claws. The curves of these claws will catch on surfaces, like bars, so they can hang. The muscles in their legs and feet bunch up to help lock themselves in place so their claws won't instantly rip out from their body weight.

-The talons are usually sheathed in the feet and can be retracted outwards when needed. When out, a leather avian becomes digitigrade and walks on their toes. It's sort of like walking on giant toenails.

-When it's cold, Vesper ears and wings are more susceptible to frostbite because the skin tends to be thinner than the skin on a regular avian's.

-Vespers are the most discriminated pureblooded avian race. Several avians don't like them because of their ability to drink blood and so they see them as demons.

**The Flightless**

**Description:** Tightly curled wingbuds extending from their shoulder blades, which can unfurl outwards

**Abilities:** N/A

**Classification:** N/A

**Goddess:** N/A

**Facts:**

-Wingbuds are tightly curled membranes that extend from the shoulder blades, which vary in size from Flightless to Flightless, but they're usually the size of a regular book. However, they can unfurl and form a vague wing-like shape.

-Sometimes hints of color can be seen under the skin if the complexion is light enough.

-They molt every two months, which consists of the top layer of skin on their back peeling off.

-Flightless aren't just wingless avians, but also avians who have one wing, a lame wing, or wings that don't work at all. "Purebred" Flightless are the ones with the wingbuds, while "half-bloods" are the others. Purebreds do not like half-bloods because "at least they have wings."

-Most Flightless hate when people touch or try to touch their wingbuds, which is quite common, especially in children. The flesh on the wingbuds is extremely sensitive and the sensation of it being touched is like running your nails over the skin of a body part that fell asleep.

-Forcefully unfurling a Flightless' wingbuds is painful and extremely uncomfortable.

-Skin infections are common with the Flightless because of how tender the skin on their back is. It isn't unnatural to see one with long slices and cuts marring their back from the flesh breaking open.

-"No-Wings", "Bareback", "LameWings", and "Wingless" are slurs to the Flightless. They don't even like being called "the Flightless", they would prefer to actually be called "Smooth Skins" because of their smooth backs. Of course, nobody ever respects these wishes.

-They have the highest depression and suicide rate out of all avian species.

**Hybrids**

**Description:** Appearances vary depending on parents

**Abilities:** Abilities vary depending on parents

**Classification:** N/A

**Goddess:** Varies from the cross

**Facts:**

-Hybrids are as rare as Flightless and are about as discriminated against as they are, too, if not more.

-Hybrids happen when the genes of two different species mutate into each other instead of one dominating the other, so the resulting child will be a mix of both parents.

-Most of them don't even survive past childhood. They either die because their body is unstable or are killed because they're viewed as a freak of nature by all species. They're also very sickly and susceptible to illnesses.

-If crossed with a Cimex, a hybrid's blood will be a different color. Yellow bug blood + normal avian blood = orange blood; Blue bug blood + normal avian blood = purple blood; Green bug blood + normal avian blood = A brown-grey blood.

-Normal hybrid blood is usually a darker red than normal blood, almost black when it first comes out.

-Avems used to kill hybrids to keep the genes from spreading. This has since been outlawed--or is at least done behind closed doors so nobody will ever know.

-A lot of Vesper hybrids usually die from drinking blood because they are unable to urinate out the plasma (because they didn't get that ability), so the bacteria kills them.

-Several butterfly/moth Cimexs die during metamorphosis because their already-grown-in pair of wings don't stop moving and rip the cocoon open. The result is very messy, as their body will essentially be liquidated.

-If they do live, the strain of giant butterfly/moth wings has a chance of ripping their back open.

-Some hybrids are born with more than one pair of wings, causing difficulties and back problems as their life progresses.

-Hybrids used to be enslaved and used for show. Several nobles would keep hybrids as "pets" of sorts and would show them off at parties.

-Hybrids are incredibly infertile and cannot reproduce, as the resulting child would be a tribrid.

-Medical issues run rampant in hybrids, such as muscle deterioration, breathing issues, and brittle bones. As stated before, they are also very sickly and get ill very easily. As a result, almost all of them are frail and scrawny.

-Some hybrids can't even fly because of how weak their bodies are. They just aren't strong enough to get off the ground, so their wings will sometimes just drag behind them.

-Hybrids have a hard time molting because of conflicting pelt types. Assistance is most likely needed, but most avians usually don't want to go near hybrids.

-Hybrids aren't wanted by pureblooded avians OR the Flightless. The purebloods see them as screw-ups and monsters and freaks, while the Flightless see them as glorified show pets and consider them lucky to even have wings. As a result, many hybrids spend their lives alone and are discriminated against.


	2. Terminology

Fledge/fledgling- A young avian from 0-18 of any race

Flock- A group of avians

Molting- The shedding of feathers or fuzz (Avem or Vesper)

Shedding- The peeling of old scales to make way for new ones (Hydras)

Sloughing- The removal of a layer of skin as a form of protection (Hydras)

Plumage- Feathers

Down- Baby fuzz/feathers

Nesting season- A time that occurs a few times during ovulation throughout the year, making more maternal female Avems and Hydras extra broody, hormonal, and motherly, as well as anxious and irritated.

Broodiness- The action or behavioral tendency to tend to and protect fledges

Hooding- Covering a fledge with wings as a form of comfort or protection, like how a hen sits on eggs (seen mainly in female Avems)

Broody Hen- A maternal, hormonal female Avem

Broody Dragoness- A maternal, hormonal female Hydra

Mammary feathers- A layer of extra-soft, fluffy, and warm feathers that grow on the undersides of a female Avem’s wings during nesting season.

Oil baths- A process of rubbing a fledge in mammary feathers to imprint and rub off the special oils on the wings on them, essentially marking a fledge as a hen’s or dragoness’ own

Clutch- A group of blood-related siblings

Radar Ears- The swiveling of Vesper ears when echolocation is being used

Dewclaws- One to three opposable claws on a Vesper’s wings

Preening- The grooming of wings and hair

Mandibles- Strong, extra bones in the jaw of Cimexs that can fold in and retract out from the mouth, usually used for crushing or tearing food and intimidation/protection

Metamorphosis- The process of a moth or butterfly Cimex spinning a cocoon and growing wings

Elytra- A hard outer shell that covers the wings of certain Cimexes (mainly seen in beetles)


	3. Interrogation Log #1

"The legend goes like this...

Way back in the old days, like dinosaur time, avians were more monster than human. We were covered in fur or feathers or scales, walked on four legs, hunted, and ate wild animals like predators. We were called 'WingEaters' because of how we would eat the wings of different tribes as a form of dominance.

And then we evolved. Lost our animal bodies and became more humanoid. We learned to write and read and speak and be more civilized. But those primal instincts still lurk inside of us, and with enough stress on them, we could become beasts once again.

Some say we were cursed by the Devil himself, and the infection just passed through every bloodline. Others believe instincts simply drive people mad and they go completely berserk. I've even heard a theory saying we descended from dinosaurs. Like, we were the dinosaurs and we just evolved after the asteroid hit. But I think that's dumb. Not very believable if you ask me. I mean, dinosaurs? Really?"

"I didn't come here to discuss folklore with you. Besides, everyone knows that story."

"Right. Of course. My bad, officer."

Eighteen-year-old Shelby Gonzalez leaned back in her chair, arms crossed firmly over her chest, eyes set on the detective in front of her. He was a Cimex man named Michael Mulaney, with wide shoulders, neatly combed brown hair, and hazel eyes. He looked at Shelby like he wanted to open up her brain and read through all her thoughts and memories. Shiny grasshopper wings were folded on his back, tight with tension.

"I was just explaining for background on all of this," Shelby said.

"Ah," Mulaney nodded, not really believing her. "How long did you know her?"

The interrogation room looked exactly as it did in the criminal justice TV shows every parent seems to watch- blank grey walls, white metal chairs, a way-too-bright hanging light over the single table, a one-way mirror where other investigators were surely watching, one exit. Mulaney had apologized for the dullness when they first came in, saying it probably wasn't the nicest place to be questioned, but it was protocol. Shelby had said it was alright.

Mulaney was pacing back and forth on his side of the table, his grasshopper Cimex blood practically filling him with springing energy. There was only one other person in the room aside from him and Shelby; she was a young ghost bat Vesper named Stella, who was training to be a crime scene investigator and brought in to take notes on the interrogation. She had strawberry blonde hair and baby blue eyes, but usually kept her nose buried in her notepad, rarely looking up from the words she was fervently writing down.

"A while. Since middle school, I think. But we didn't get close until this year." Shelby replied, then sullenly added, "I never really gave her a chance."

"Did she ever show signs of snapping?"

"No. Not that I saw. She never really did anything about the treatment she got. She just--endured it. All of it."

"What about anyone else?"

"I don't know. She didn't exactly have friends. I think Kevin and I may have been the first."

"I see. Now, about that legend..."


	4. NOVEMBER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s supposed to be a lot of stuff in italics, but apparently AO3 didn’t put them in, so,,,, I don’t have the mental capacity to fix it right now, so please bear with me for the moment

Welcome To James Madison

Friday, 20th

Allegedly, James Madison High School was haunted. At least, that was what that one ghost hunting television show that came through to film a couple of years ago said, but their episode wasn't exactly very accurate in terms of realness. They went running around the hallways at night spooking each other and trying to exorcise ghosts, except those ghosts were really just some senior kids who went out to mess with the crew. They made weird noises and drew symbols on the walls until they got sick of it and went home. The ghost hunters determined that they had released the poor souls of the damned, and that was that. They got another happy ending for their show.

But James Madison was anything but happy. It was high school. Was true joy really ever possible inside their walls?

Alas, there wasn't anything to be done. All you could really do was push through the struggles--or take the easy route and just drop out or get expelled, though you would then have to face the wrath of your parents, so was really it worth it?

Well. At least James Madison had an indoor pool.

And if they wanted to swim in it, a winglet of girls would have to complete a very ancient and important trial.

Harpyball.

"Alright, ladies!" Coach Dickinson called from the roof of the school. "Let's try to make a goal! Come on, you can do it!" She was a tall, muscular Avem woman with powerful phoenix wings that twitched with energy behind her. She looked exactly like the legendary bird she took after, clad in a yellow and black tracksuit and her usual shiny silver whistle, mossy green eyes scrutinizing her class carefully.

Above her, the sky was stretched out into an endless blue plain. Girls flipped and hovered and weaved in the air, dressed in black biker shorts and sports bras. Shirts caused more wind resistance when in flight, so they weren't worn when playing. Fine with Shelby, personally, she enjoyed the feeling of the sun on her skin.

Rivulets of sweat ran down her sun-kissed dark skin, shimmering in the sunlight and setting her peacock butterfly wings aglow with color. Her sharp-tongued, gremlin-like best friend, Kaylee Klein, floated up beside her and flashed her a smirk before pumping her wings and lunging through the air to go after the served ball. She was a Hydra, with powerful, bright blue wings that had sea green and emerald green inkblot-like splotches all over the interior. Her seam ripper-shaped horns were darker blue and tipped with sea green, and her luscious brown hair usually wreathed elegantly around them if it weren't for the ponytail she had.

Shelby copied her, going after the ball to stay on defense. She canted her huge wings, narrowly avoiding crashing into another girl. Swooping upwards, she torpedoed her body in between a pair of reaching Avems and snatched the ball out of the air. Alarmed squawks of shock made a smirk pull on her lips. She quickly threw the ball to one of her teammates before it could be taken again.

This process repeated, bobbing and weaving, tossing and stealing, swooping and diving until Kaylee zipped through the goal area with the ball grasped tightly in her talons. Loud cheering from her team instantly broke out at the gain of a point.

"Yeah!!" Kaylee cheered. She glided over to Shelby and twirled around her. "I am the best Harpyball player ever! Bow down to the queen!"

Shelby laughed and bowed. Kaylee beamed at her, fluttering the tips of her ruff. From the roof of the school, Coach Dickinson shook her head fondly, then signaled for the girls to get ready and Shelby and Kaylee parted, ready to get their team a point.

But they didn't.

Because the ball was passed far and the girl who was supposed to be occupying the airspace was standing on solid ground, shirt still on, staring dumbly at the ball that thumped in front of her.

All eyes turned to Emma Nolan, the witch in a mortal world.

She was an undernourished, stunted mess of an avian. Lanky and gaunt, with a narrow chest, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes that were so bright baby blue that she appeared to look blind in the sunlight. Shaggy snarls of dirty blonde fell around big bat ears, one of which was black and the other was cream, and yet she also had blue-black feathers flecked on her cheeks.

A hybrid.

Emma was only 15, a sophomore, and two grades below Shelby, but Shelby had known her since elementary school. Everyone did. Even in a city like New Orleans, everyone knew about the Swamp Witch with her weird wings and her crazy mother. And that made her a target for even the lowest of losers. There had been years worth of teasing and messing around with this girl. School days full of pinching and tripping and knocking books over. Bubblegum matted in greasy hair when she was sleeping in Algebra and inappropriate notes slipped into her binders. Scorpions put into her shoes, thumbtacks poised on her chairs, lunches dumped over her head. Dozens of games created to see who could make Emma cry first or who could make Emma beg for forgiveness or who could dunk Emma underwater the most in the canals until she drowned. Slurs and rude nicknames tossed her way, worms were put in her food, and spit spat on her as she passed by. Feathers ripped out, ears pulled on, dewclaws smashed in doorways. People laughed when she presented, people begged the teacher to switch partners when they were put into a group with her, people destroyed her work so she would have nothing to turn in when she got to certain classes.

Everyone made fun of Emma Nolan, and if she knew this, she never did anything about it.

Emma lifted her head like an impeded cow and blinked slowly at Coach Dickinson, who was frowning pitifully at her. She looked back down at the ball, then the sky, and then she took a shuffling step backward, hugging her arms tightly around herself.

"Do you think she's retarded?" Linda not-quite-whispered to Shelby and her friends. Her silver pheasant wings were like dancing beams of light in the air, but her long, flowing tail feathers were bobbing like squid tentacles around her legs. Dark brown eyes scrutinized Emma with great distaste that she didn't bother hiding on her face.

Shelby shrugged.

"I bet she is," Impish Jules said, glancing back at Emma, who was slowly inching further and further away from the edge of the playing field. Her pied falconet wings were dripping with sweat and fluffing up from the humidity, but she didn't seem to really care. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Does she never take that necklace off?" Winnie said, her green eyes staring at the silver key on a chain coiled around Emma's gangly neck. She was a Vespertilio, a small white vampire bat, to be exact. The white of her wings and ears and stubby bobtail brightly contrasted with her natural red hair.

"Doubt it," Linda said.

"I bet she thinks she'll die if she does," Jules tittered. "That the bungalow of witches she's a part of will strike her down for taking off their sacred crest!"

Ah, there it was. Everyone's favorite thing to ridicule Emma with- the claims that she was a witch.

Jules did a dramatic reenactment of what she thought witches mauling a girl would probably look like and the group burst into giggles. Coach Dickinson glanced at them, eyebrows furrowed.

"Alright, let's get Emma Nolan in the game." Their coach announced, much to everyone's dismay. But nobody looked more dismayed than Emma, who gave Coach Dickinson a miserable, fearful look. Coach Dickinson frowned at her again. "Sorry, honey. You can't sit on the sidelines forever."

Emma stared nervously at the class, then glanced one last time up at Coach Dickinson. When she must have realized that she wasn't getting out of this, she took off her shirt and spread her wings. The other girls watched her impatiently.

Shelby wasn't sure what was more daunting, how skinny this girl was or her wings. The top halves of them were plain cream bat flesh with black piebald spots, but then midnight blue-black feathers sprouted up the further down the wing went until the ends were completely bushy with plumage. All the excess feathers seemed to go to her chest instead, which was fluffed with storm grey and dark blue and ash brown and--god, this was why piebald bats and black barn owls never mate with each other. That, and other reasons.

Emma vigorously pumped her wings to get up to the height the rest of the class was at. She seemed to struggle with flying, though that was probably because she was missing several flight feathers. She eyed the other girls nervously, swiveling her ears back against her head.

"Good," Coach Dickinson said, smiling at Emma proudly. "Okay, serve. Let's get this game back on track."

So, Harpyball started again, and someone had the bright idea to pass the ball to Emma. She held it tentatively as if it were a fragile dragon egg, and then a Hydra girl came at her in a flying tackle, slamming into her stomach and knocking her out of the air.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Kaylee said.

"Watch your mouth, Klein." Coach Dickinson snapped.

Emma floundered in the grass like a beetle stuck on its back before she was able to roll over. She muttered a weak "sorry", then flapped back into the air to try again. She didn't actually touch the ball for the rest of the game as she tried to sink into the sky and disappear forever.

Shelby's team ended up losing the game seven to sixteen because the other side kept passing the ball to Emma, knowing she wouldn't be able to get it or defend the goal. Everyone kept glaring at her and shooting barbed remarks her way each time she failed at both defense and offense, and Coach Dickinson did her best to ward them off, but not even their coach could catch every insult hurled her way.

"'Oh, look at me, I'm a retarded little hybrid who can't play a simple game!'" Jules cried woefully in an awful imitation of Emma's voice. She whacked the top of Emma's head with one of her wings as she flapped by to land. "Learn to play, mutant!"

Emma flinched back so hard she nearly fell right out of the sky. She landed slowly, then instantly wrapped her wings around herself like she thought they would protect her.

"Is it pool time?" Winnie asked Coach Dickinson eagerly.

Coach Dickinson sighed in amusement. "Yes, yes. Go have fun."

The girls cheered and herded back into the gym to get to the indoor pool. Emma stayed behind, stiff like a statue. Coach Dickinson looked at her pitifully.

"Come on, Emma," Coach Dickinson said, peering down at the misfit child. There was something in her voice that gave the impression that she spent a lot of time managing this particular student. "Go wind down in the pool. Chlorine is better than sweat if you ask me." She tilted her head at her, noticing creases of affliction on Emma's face. "Is everything alright?"

"M-my stomach..." Emma whispered so quietly Coach Dickinson almost didn't hear her. "It hurts..."

Coach Dickinson frowned. "I'm sorry, Emma." She said. "You can go to the nurse after you get changed? I can write you a pass if you'd like."

Emma shook her head, then slowly shuffled into the gym.

The sound of splashing echoed loudly throughout the enclosed area, the smell of chlorine thick in the air. The girls had jumped into the water without even bothering to change into their bathing suits, preferring to romp around in their biker shorts and sports bras. They swam and floated and had overly aggressive water fights while Emma watched fearfully from the side of the pool.

"She's so stupid," Kaylee muttered, side-eyeing the hybrid. "Is no one worried about our safety?"

"What?" Shelby looked at her.

"I heard they spread diseases," Kaylee said matter-of-factly.

"Really?" Winnie blinked.

"Am I ever wrong?"

"Dumb bitch," Jules growled. "Does she think she's better than us by standing there?"

"Maybe she just doesn't want to get in," Shelby said.

"Hmph. I'll be back."

Shelby and her friends watched as Jules climbed out of the pool from the far ladder and circled around the pool so she was behind Emma. Despite having bat ears and keen hearing, Emma apparently didn't hear Jules coming. By the time she did, it was too late.

Jules shoved Emma into the pool.

Laughter instantly exploded throughout the pool, rebounding off of the high-vaulted ceilings and coming back like a sonic boom. Emma floundered in the water, slapping her wings against the surface in distress. The pool was only five feet deep, but Emma was also only five feet tall, a problem Shelby didn't really consider until that moment.

"Swim, witch!" Jules chortled. "Or else you're gonna melt!"

Emma dug her claws into the edge of the pool and hung on for dear life, heaving desperate breaths. Her ears were folded back and her wings were trembling, sending ripples through the slowly-blackening water.

Wait--

"EW!!" One girl shrieked. "What IS that?!"

The water. It was turning black.

Whorls of ebony billowed throughout the pool like thick dark storm clouds. It seemed to be coming from between Emma's thighs, though they couldn't be seen because of how dark the water had become around her.

"It's plasma!" Winnie said.

"Oh, ewww!" Linda squealed. "Really? In the pool? That's so gross!"

"What do you expect from a dirty hybrid?" Kaylee said in disgust.

"HA!" Jules barked a loud laugh. "She INKED!"

Loud laughter bubbled up from that comment. Even Shelby found herself laughing, even though secondhand embarrassment was surging through her so much that her ears were heating up.

"Guess she's part squid, too!" One girl yelled, and giggling ensued once again.

"Aww, the baby got scared and inked on herself!" Another tittered.

Emma looked absolutely petrified. Her claws curled tighter around the edge of the pool, clinging to it as if it were a boat and she was a drowning woman. Her bulging blue eyes were locked on the black liquid spreading throughout the pool and didn't look at anything else.

"Emma, get out of the pool." Shelby said a lot harsher than she intended.

But Emma didn't get out. She didn't move at all, not even her wings. She remained frozen, as if the pool was filled with arctic waters and she was suffering from hypothermia.

"God, are you fucking deaf?" Kaylee snapped.

No answer. Not even a tiny whimper. Emma's mouth just stayed half-open but emitted no noise.

"I wonder what it's from," Winnie wondered.

"Passing the blood you drank?" Linda asked the scared hybrid. "That has to be what it's from! She drank blood!"

"I bet it was a little boy!" Jules declared. "Remember that Amber Alert we got a few days ago? I bet you kidnapped that kid and ATE him!" She leaned over the pool. "You did, didn't you? This is the plasma from his blood you're leaking out everywhere! You killed him!"

She's fifteen... Shelby was thinking. Surely she knows what this is... She's part Vesper for god's sake...

But by the look on Emma's face, she didn't seem to know what was going on.

"Get out of the fucking pool and clean yourself up!" Kaylee yelled. "This is disgusting!"

A tiny whimper finally came out of Emma's quivering lips. Her face had gradually become paler and paler as the seconds ticked by and her breathing was starting to hitch. Was she having a panic attack?

"Come on, girl!" Kaylee went on. "Piss it all out in front of us or get out and clean yourself up!" She beat her wings, sending a tidal wave of blackish plasma-contaminated water splashing over Emma.

Shrieks of disgust filled the gym. Plasma water dripped off of Emma's face, but after looking closer, Shelby realized those were also tears.

"I don't think she's going to get out." Winnie said, looking up at Shelby and Kaylee.

Kaylee smirked widely. "Then let's clean her up ourselves."

As if this had been planned beforehand, Jules suddenly knelt down and shoved Emma's head underwater.

An immediate struggle ensued. Emma snapped out of the horrified trance she had been in and swung her claws desperately, squirming like a drowning snake. Her screams could be heard from even above the water, but nobody was making a move to save her. They all just watched with morbid excitement in their eyes.

"We're just cleaning you, girl!" Kaylee shouted. "Calm down!"

Bubbles exploded across the surface of the pool. Emma's wings flapped in a panic, but they did little to help her get free. She had to be swallowing so much of the plasma water.

"DROWN THE WITCH!"

It was impossible to discern who let out the first cry; Shelby thought it may have been Linda, but it didn't matter because once was enough.

Everyone began to join in.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

Girls started to slap their wings against the surface of the water, still shouting over the splashing. Peals of laughter shrieked noisily throughout the gym.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

It was becoming a chant, an incantation, a hex of humiliation directed at a hybrid girl bleeding black cloaca juices all into the pool. She just looked so dumb . It was easy to pity her, which Shelby, for one, did, but it was also so easy to make fun of her. And it was fun to do so. She always gave such good reactions. And it was okay, Shelby decided, because everyone was doing it. There was no harm in a little teasing. They weren't hurting Emma. Although, Jules wasn't letting her up for air...

Tendrils of dirty blonde hair floated like squid tentacles in the water around Emma's thrashing head. Only the tips of her ears peeked out of the water. The beating of her wings was starting to become weaker.

"Piss it out, heifer!" Jules cackled, pushing down harder. "Piss out the little boy you ate!"

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

By now, the yelling had been heard by Coach Dickinson, who halted her conversation with another teacher outside of the pool and hurried inside to see what the commotion was.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

Shelby shook off her doubt. Emma always overreacted like this. It was fine. They were just having fun! It was Emma's own fault for not knowing and being so stupid. She could get up whenever she wanted. Surely Jules wasn't holding her down that much.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

"HEY!"

And then, Coach Dickinson was there in her blindingly yellow tracksuit with black stripes that made her look more like an offending wasp than a fiery phoenix. She marched over, flapping her wings to get her class's attention.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

The image of a killer wasp was momentarily replaced with a bumblebee about to be smashed to death by a boot because Coach Dickinson genuinely looked startled at the sight of one of her students holding another student underwater, surrounded by more plasma than water. Everything clicked into place for her and her green eyes flashed with rage.

"DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH! DROWN THE WITCH!"

"KNOCK IT OFF!!!" Coach Dickinson roared. However, it wasn't her who knocked Jules onto her ass.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Shelby flinched back slightly in shock. She had never heard a teacher yell so intensely before. She blinked in fright at Miss Allen, the World History and U.S. Government teacher, standing above Jules's sprawled figure.

Miss Allen was one teacher you never wanted to mess with. She was very nice and funny but took absolutely no shit, and when she got mad, she got mad . As seen here, for example.

She was a Hydra, if not by appearance, then by fiery personality. Her wings were huge, shimmering copper in color with veins of gold running through them. Bobbed auburn hair wound around thick, tightly curled metallic orange ram horns, and the large webbed frills behind her ears were flared to full size, shimmering like a raging fire in the lights. Dark smoke puffed from her nostrils and mouth, tiny flames flickering with each breath she took.

"I-I--" Jules stammered uselessly.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Miss Allen roared again, beating her wings.

"She's just passing some plasma, that's all," Kaylee said for Jules dismissively. "We're only messing around."

"You are all disgusting." Miss Allen hissed. She glared at Jules, then Kaylee so fiercely it was a wonder they didn't burst into flames. She then turned that glare onto all her other students, face twisted in hatred and disappointment. The chanting had died off by then, and they could all hear the sniffles and whimpers and coughs Emma was emitting after coming back out of the water.

"GET OUT!" Coach Dickinson ordered. "EVERYBODY! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

The girls instantly scattered. A few had even already gotten out and fled to the locker room before names could be written down. Coach Dickinson watched them all go, then jumped into the pool without a care in the world.

"Emma?" Coach Dickinson said, softening her voice of all its barbs and thorns. She approached Emma slowly and set a hand on her shaking shoulders. "Emma, come on."

Emma's reaction to being touched was instantaneous- her eyes shot open wide and she sucked in a sharp, grating breath that made her entire body heave with the force of the gasp. Then, she began to shake even harder, limbs flailing, water and coughs spilling from her lips, whimpers forming words.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She sobbed. "I'm sorry! No more! No more!"

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." Coach Dickinson said, trying to pull Emma up out of the water. "Come on. Come on."

Emma was in too deep in her panic to properly process the words. She spasmed and wailed in an awful, anguished way.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Emma wept. She latched onto the edge of the pool and didn't let go. "Please! Please! No more!"

"Come on, sweetie," Coach Dickinson encouraged softly. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"N-no, I-I can't!" Emma mewled. "I can't! I can't! I don't want anymore--"

"Emma, come on." Coach Dickinson tried again. If the plasma she was wading in bothered her, she didn't show it. "Hold onto me. Can you hold onto me?"

"It hurts!" Emma wailed. "It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! I can't-- I can't--"

Coach Dickinson, who was usually so headstrong and sure of herself, looked dumbfounded. She glanced up at Miss Allen, who seemed equally helpless, then back down at the girl in front of her. "Honey, what's going on? What's wrong?"

Shelby, who had stopped before going into the locker room to change, slowly sidled back over to the scene. She stepped up next to Coach Dickinson and peered into the pool. Both teachers only momentarily glanced at her.

"I don't think she knows it's plasma," Shelby told them softly. "Maybe she accidentally drank something's bl--"

"NO!!" Emma cried instantly. "No! No! No! No!" Her panic was building. Her shaking was getting worse.

"Shelby, leave!" Miss Allen snarled, glaring at the student at her side.

"But--"

"You aren't helping!"

Emma's cries were getting louder and louder and more and more shrill by the second. She was practically heaving, her lanky little body jerking and spasming. She looked so much thinner without any proper clothes to cover her skeletal frame. Her stomach was sunken in and her ribs were slightly visible through her milky white, doughy skin.

"Emma! Alright, Emma!" Coach Dickinson said loudly. "Emma? Emma!"

Emma frenzied harder. Coach Dickinson pursed her lips, then hooded her wings over the girl, forcing her to huddle against her chest. In an instant, Emma dissolved into loud, fearful sobs. Coach Dickinson wrapped her arms around the girl and lifted her up.

"Shh, shh," Coach Dickinson soothed her. She stroked her fingers through Emma's wet hair, rocking her back and forth. "It's okay. You're okay, honey."

Coach Dickinson carried Emma over to the staircase and out of the water. Miss Allen met them halfway and draped towels over each of them.

"Is she alright?" Miss Allen asked.

"I don't know," Coach Dickinson admitted, looking down at the little girl clinging to her like a soggy, winged koala. "Damn those girls. I swear to god I am going to shove my talons so far up their--"

Emma whimpered. Coach Dickinson shut her mouth instantly.

"It's going to be alright, sweet pea," Miss Allen murmured. Emma peeked at her from behind Coach Dickinson’s shoulder, then whimpered again. "We're going to get you cleaned up, alright?"

Emma looked up at Miss Allen, then at Coach Dickinson, tears pouring from her shiny blue eyes, and squeaked out, "I've never drunk blood before."

The Chemistry of Plasma

Text taken from a science textbook in Mr. Samuel's Biology class:

" Plasma, not to be confused with the blood plasma in blood cells, is a liquid component caused by the ingestion of a living creature's blood. It can only be created by Vespertilios and any hybrid with Vespertilio DNA in them.

Vespertilios require an anticoagulant enzyme, a protein named "Draculin", in their saliva to keep their host's blood from clotting when they drink. Upon feeding, the unique gut microbes in their stomachs safely break down the harmful bacteria in the blood that other species wouldn't be able to handle, keeping them from getting sick. The blood is then transported into the kidney, where it is then filtered of any remaining bacteria and turned into a safe plasma. The plasma is excreted from the cloaca, which is located in the penis for males and in between the urethra and vaginal opening for females. Plasma appears as a whitish-brown liquid in the body and turns black when it comes in contact with oxygen. Plasma also has the same density and thickness as blood, and smells similar to period blood, but slightly more acrid."

The Cardinal Nest

Friday, 20th

Miss Allen and Coach Dickinson both tried to explain the process of plasma release to Emma for almost an hour, but each time they did, Emma would always get the same confused-startled expression on her face. She was utterly terrified of the concept of filtering a living thing's blood, more so than most young avians were when they would first find out Vespertilios could even do that. She just kept insisting over and over that she had never drunk any blood before.

After the sudden Biology lecture, Dickinson had to resume teaching, while Allen guided a limping Emma down the mercifully empty hallways and to the front office. Emma was left out in the waiting room, ogled by the receptionist, student helpers, and two mischievous boys awaiting their punishment for skipping class while Allen went into the principal's office to discuss the incident.

Principal Tom Hawkins, a mellow cardinal Avem that was well-liked by staff and students alike, looked incredibly bewildered the moment Allen launched into an explanation. He did his best to look mature and refined about this, but he couldn't help but cringe when the details of all the plasma were described greatly.

"How old is she?" He asked. "Shouldn't all Vespers know by now what plasma is, even if they don't drink blood?"

"That's what I was thinking!" Allen said, stopping her process of pacing around the room and ranting for a moment. The tip of her tail was flicking back and forth like a metronome. "I thought they all got a lecture in elementary school, but I guess Emma must have called in sick or something. Nobody ever told her." She sighed, shook her head, and resumed pacing. "She thought she was bleeding to death ."

Hawkins blew out a breath from his nose. "I'm just--" He fumbled with a black pen that left spatters of ink across a sheet of paperwork. "Was it solved? Was it handled?"

"Yes," Allen said. "Angie and I both handled it." She paused for a moment, her ruff twitching. "What about the girls who did this? Will they be punished?"

"Of course." Hawkins nodded. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my school." He looked up at Allen. "Think you can handle it?"

"Yeah," Allen nodded. "I'll expel them."

Hawkins jolted. He managed to keep his wings from springing out, but his ruby red crest feathers still stood up on end in surprise. Allen smirked.

"What? No!" Hawkins warbled. "Not that!"

"Why not?" Allen asked innocently.

" Not yet. "

"Hmm. I'll take it."

Hawkins chuckled lightly. "Well, in the meantime, Emma may go home. I assume this must have been quite traumatic for her." He leaned over and pressed the button on his com system. "Ms. Reed, please send in Emma Nolan."

Emma slipped inside, dripping wet and miserable-looking. Snarled tangles of wet dirty blonde hair drooped around her pale face like soggy snakes, ears lowered in evident sadness and distress. Her eyes were dark and blank, like an ocean during a storm, and tear stains were still evident on her cheeks. She stopped at the door, so Allen crossed over to her and gently guided her to the desk.

Hawkins looked up at her from his large leather office chair, but she didn't look back at him. She didn't even raise her head from its angled position directed at the floor. He swallowed thickly, getting strange vibes from this student. He was so used to being barked and snapped and glared at by teenagers that entered his office. This silence and avoidance of eye contact didn't feel right.

"We feel that it would be best if you went home for the day and took care of yourself," Hawkins said, not sure if Emma was even listening to him. "We're all very sorry about this, Emma."

"No." Emma whispered so quietly both Hawkins and Allen had to lean in to hear her.

"What was that?" Hawkins said.

"I don't wanna go home." Emma said, slightly louder this time.

Hawkins and Allen both blinked. What kid didn't like leaving school early?

"Can I stay here?" Emma asked, looking up. Her expression was so sad, and her big, droopy ears certainly didn't help, either.

"I--" Hawkins fumbled. "Are you sure? It really is no trouble sending you home. We can even call a cab if you don't want to walk or fly." He glanced at Emma's malformed wings and knew they wouldn't be much help in getting her home quickly.

"I'm sure," Emma said. "Please?"

"Uh-- Yes. Of course." Hawkins began to scribble on a dismissal slip he swiped out of a drawer. "I'll just write you a note for you to skip your remaining classes for the day. Would that work?"

Emma nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Emma?" Allen said to the girl, "You're going to be excused from Gym for a week. Just go to the library or study hall instead."

Emma just nodded silently. Allen and Hawkins exchanged nervous looks, then Allen gently lifted Emma's chin to make her look at her.

"Emma, honey," The dragoness said, "I am so sorry about what happened. You didn't deserve that."

Emma just stared up at her with big, sad blue eyes that looked so much like an injured calves.

"You know, having plasma is totally normal for Vespers." Allen tried to smooth her panic out. She paused, hesitated, then quietly asked, "Is this your first time passing some?"

Allen wasn't sure who looked more uncomfortable: Emma or Hawkins. Both seemed supremely uneasy with the question, but Hawkins was blinking in a dumbstruck sort of way that only non-Vesper men would do over this subject.

Emma herself was quiet for a long time, but eventually squeaked out, "M-my Mama never t-told me about it..."

"Oh, baby..." Allen cooed pitifully. She set a hand on Emma's shoulder, feeling her jump and then lean slightly into her touch. "Do you know what's happening in your body? Do you know what caused it?"

Hawkins wiped away a bead of sweat from his brow.

"I-I don't know..." Emma whispered. "I'm sorry..."

"Hey, hey, it's alright," Allen said quickly. "I'm not mad at you, I promise. It's not your fault."

"As I said," Hawkins spoke up again, "we're all very sorry about this, Emma."

Aftershock

Friday, 20th

"Aaand, I got dress coded!" Shelby said, walking over to where Kaylee and Jules were waiting for her outside her Economics class.

"I told you not to wear ripped jeans," Kaylee said. "But do you ever listen to your best friend? Noooo!"

Shelby bat Kaylee with one wing. "Oh, shut up." She looked around, unfurling her antennae, and noticed that many people in the hallway were giggling and looking at their phones, more so than usual.

"Is something going on?" She asked Jules and Kaylee.

"Shh, here she comes!" Jules said eagerly.

The mob of students swarming through the hall parted instantly like the Red Sea, and Emma could be seen trudging through the passage opened up before her. Her head was lowered, as were her ears, but she's peeking through her dangling strands of hair to peer around her with a wet, resentful look. Whispers and giggles whisked loudly around her, but she didn't acknowledge them. She just walked on, ignoring it all.

"Kaylee," Shelby whispered, "what did you do?"

"Shh," Kaylee whispered back. "Just watch." She and Jules were locking arms and smirking widely. Shelby turned back to Emma and realized that the entire hallway had gone still and was now watching in anticipation.

It's okay, Shelby thought as Emma strode onwards. Everyone is doing it. Everyone is watching. It isn't hurting anyone...

And then one boy held up his phone, said, "Nice spill, Emma! I hope you cleaned yourself up!", and that belief in Shelby's brain fell away.

This is not okay.

Guilt slammed into Shelby so fiercely she gasped out loud--or maybe that was from the realization that someone had posted the whole pool ordeal online.

"You made a post about it?" Shelby hissed to Kaylee and Jules, disgust and disbelief oozing into her voice.

"Calm down," Kaylee said dismissively. "It's fine. Just a little joke."

"Yeah!" Jules added. "It's funny!"

But it wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

Emma looked humiliated and terrified when she seemed to realize what exactly had happened. Not even mad, just...scared. Like she was expecting something worse. It was the first time Shelby had really noticed that expression on her, and she isn't sure what to make of that.

But still, Emma did nothing. She just stared forward, her entire body rigid, then closed her eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. When she opened her weird eyes again, she shook out her strange wings, swiveled her ears back, and continued forward again. Kaylee growled lowly and stuck out her foot, tripping her. Emma teetered forward and sprawled on her chest, scattering all her belongings and causing another uproar of laughter as the bell rang overhead. There weren't any teachers coming to check on the scene, either lost in the crowd or they didn't care enough to do anything. It seemed all staff had given up helping Emma, naming her as a lost cause, and some even participated in picking on her.

"Stupid mutant." Kaylee spit in Emma's hair, much to Shelby's disgust. She had wanted a better reaction to her prank. "Come on, Shelby. You too, Jules."

She and Jules whisked away before any teacher could think to do anything useful, as did everyone else, but Shelby stayed behind, frowning down at the girl below her. Guilt smashed into her even harder than the first time, especially when she saw that Emma's face was contorted with pain.

"Are you okay?" Shelby asked, kneeling beside Emma. She began to gather her fallen belongings as Emma pushed herself up weakly and offered them to her, causing Emma to flinch away. Shelby frowned. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Emma huddled her wings in close to her and stared at her with untrusting blue eyes. Shelby had never been this close to her before, so she never realized they weren't just weird; they were beautiful, too. She's never seen such shade like that before, like the moon had been scooped out of the sky and covered in frost, then placed into her sockets.

"And...I'm sorry about what happened earlier. In the pool."

Emma blinked at her, and Shelby may as well have been holding a musket in her face because she looked absolutely terrified. She clearly has never been confronted like this before and didn't know how to handle it. Her gaze screamed, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

"Umm," Shelby pulled a packet of tissues out of her binder and offered one to Emma. "Your hair. My friend--she spit on you."

Emma's expression did not change. She waited. Waiting for Shelby to pull the trigger and the joke to erupt in her face. She didn't dare move to take the tissue in fear it may be a trick, and Shelby didn’t blame her. After everything that had happened to her...

A third tidal wave of guilt came crashing down onto Shelby as she thought back to all the things she did to pick on Emma. No wonder the poor girl didn't trust her. She'd given her no reason to.

"Umm--" Shelby looked around. Nobody was near them, thank the goddesses. "Do you--want me to?"

Emma still didn't reply. Shelby waited a moment, then slowly reached out and wiped away the spit in her hair. Emma tensed up instantly, screwing her eyes shut tightly and tensing her wings. When Shelby quickly pulled away, she didn't look any less nervous.

"There," Shelby said. "All done." She wadded the tissue up to throw away when she got the chance, then settled her gaze back on Emma, who was bug-eyed once again. "I'm--I'm sorry. Again. What happened in the shower... You didn't deserve that. I'm sorry."

No reply.

Shelby sighed. She expected no forgiveness, and she certainly didn't deserve any, but she had still hoped she may get a sliver of something .

And then Emma was latching onto Shelby's arm, and a shockwave of desperation shivered up through her tendons. Her fingers were nimbly and thin like a skeleton's, and her touch was deathly cold, yet smooth from silvery scars on her hands. Something strange moved beneath this girl's skin.

"You laughed at me," Emma whispered, and her voice was like the rustle of dead leaves against concrete. "You've always laughed at me." And the look in her eyes finished her statement in a painful way that words could never project.

So why are you apologizing now ?

Shelby could only stare down at her helplessly.

Emma peeled her hand away and dropped it limply to her side. She looked at Shelby a second longer, her expression neutral, yet full of so much pain, and then grabbed her things, got up, and walked to the library without another word.

Shelby remained on the floor until an AP came strolling by and asked her what she was doing. She explained to him what happened and then went to go file a witness statement for Principal Hawkins, telling him exactly what her best friend had done.

Gone Home

Friday, 20th

She always had bad wings. Just like her terrible luck. Just like her unsteady stride. Just like her impossibly low self-esteem. Emma Nolan, the hybrid with every flaw known to man. Probably some that haven't even been named yet.

She hadn’t always felt that way. As a child, Emma's feet rarely touched the ground. After being self-taught at a young age, she flew everywhere--across the hall, up the stairs, around the backyard, through the swamp.

And then she went to school, where the other avians weren't as accepting of her wings. Mama would always say the other people were just jealous of her strange appearance, all while ignoring the injuries Emma would come home with- feathers forcibly plucked, wings stepped on, bruises all over her body.

Over time, she became more and more quiet and reclusive, keeping to herself after years of torment at school. Whenever she got excited or upset, her wings wanted to spread, so she learned to suppress those feelings. She didn't want to call attention to herself any more than she already did.

Back to the wings, though. They fucking sucked. From a technical standpoint, they could fit into her clothes, they weren't very big, but...suffice it to say that would do more harm than good. Even pushing them through her normal clothing was fine, but, depending on the material (which was almost all of them), the base of her wings tended to ache. The effects of the hell-suits that were most articles of clothing went like this when she was at school in particular: The base of her wings got itchy and raw after first period. Joints start swelling two periods in. By study hall, they'd go numb and heavy, forcing her to strain her back muscles to keep them from drooping on the floor. And in sixth period, the feeling would return in the form of deep, slicing pain that lingered long into the rest of the day.

The weight and pain it put on her back was constant. It caused pain in her shoulders and down her spine. During school, she was constantly having to adjust how she walked and sat so she didn't completely tip over backward. Trips to massage therapists and physios become regular and expensive. A lot of the time they're too scared to even touch her. Usually, because she was a hybrid, but many also think her ugly, patchy plumage was from Drop Feather Fever, an Avem illness. She had been refused a fair share of times, despite swearing up and down that she wasn't sick.

Just recently, she started flying again (not well, but it was better than being grounded all her life; and at least everyone would stop assuming she was Flightless, too). It didn’t help the issue either. She had to actively pull her legs back behind her using her hips and lower back. The longer she flew, the more strain there was against her shoulder blades. The way it pulled around her chest, putting stress on her ribs created both pain and breathing difficulty. It could become searing.

There was a reason birds don't have long bodies and arms. Anything else would end in extinction.

If the wings weren't bad enough, though... The fact she had to constantly deal with what felt like physical torture day to day wasn't enough of a burden for one person. She had also been burdened with being an eyesore. She could feel the fear and disgust people felt when they saw her. It came to the point where kids said they were unsafe with her being in class with her, all because of her mixed genes. There had even been a short petition to get her expelled, although that died within a week. Still, the scars it left on her mental health lingered.

It was just pain. All the time. Even things like buying clothes and sleeping couldn't be taken for granted. There was nothing good about her wings. Or her body.

But, in the end, it didn't really matter much one way or another because she suffered in silence. Especially right now, because it was November in Louisiana and too hot .

Past the streets of mayhem stretched all across New Orleans, cheery sunlight glinted on iridescent quartz trapped in the cement sidewalks of lush back neighborhoods. Loose coins scattered across the ground wink up at pedestrians, screaming, "Pick me up! Pick me up! Pick me up!" Colorful beaded necklaces, green and purple and gold, dangled from thick, low-hanging oak trees, the remnants of nightly parties that were thrown almost every weekend on this side of town. Neighborhood children were playing in their front yards; triplets, two boys and a girl, were playing in a sprinkler and spraying each other with the hose. Two more kids a few houses down were driving around in toy cars. One was swinging on a big tire swing. Emma watched that child with particularly prickly envy before trudging onward.

wish i had that

Emma's belly ached fiercely and she shifted her books into one arm so she could massage at her lower stomach tenderly. She could almost feel the muscles clenching and seizing up with every cramp that ripped through her. She tried to remember what Miss Allen and Coach Dickinson had told her, about how it was completely normal to bleed black stuff for Vespers (or Vesper hybrids, in her case), but it still made no sense. When had she drank blood?

In just a few minutes after leaving the school, the sharp cramps in her side had become violent spasms and the dull aching in her back turned into an intense, radiating burn. She was both sick with hunger and too nauseous to eat. Her bladder and bowels ached. She was sweating from the pain of it all but also shivering and weak from anemia. And, to top it all off was the gross, hot feeling of her cloaca being filled to the absolute brim with plasma and pressing uncomfortably up against her lower stomach with so much pressure she thought she would burst if the fluids weren't deposited. The pad she had to put in her underwear in case she accidentally lost control of the release (apparently the flow could either be like urinating or having a period demanding on the amount drank and age of the Vesper) was doing its job at soaking up the plasma, but it felt so thick and fat and heavy in her undergarments and rubbed her thighs in a way that made her want to peel her skin off, which was a whole other problem in and of itself.

why is this happening to me what did i do when did i drink

Emma had never drunk anyone's or anything's blood before! She would have known if she had! It's kind of hard to now know!!

She knew drinking blood was natural for her kind (if she could even be considered a Vesper), but she could never bring herself to harm another living thing like that. Drinking blood seemed cruel and painful, almost like torture. Surely it had to hurt them. She much preferred just eating bugs.

Another cramp tore through Emma's belly and she whimpered softly, feeling like she was being punished for not liking her instincts.

There was a loose rock on the sidewalk and Emma kicked it, watching it tumble across the pavement. She pretended it was Kaylee Klein’s head.

stupid bitch with no head ha ha ha all bloody and dead dead dead

A group of kids playing in a yard filled with yellow and red tulips looked up when they saw her coming by. They perked, eyes shining with interest.

can't laugh at me anymore because she would be headless and then i would laugh at HER

Emma kicked the rock harder, gritting her teeth. It bounced off of the sidewalk and into the grass, and she searched for it with her foot but couldn't find it, so she moved on.

just wanna bust her head in or break or neck or kill her and Jules and maybe Shelby but maybe not anymore because she--

"WITCH! WITCH! DING DONG, THE WITCH IS HERE!" Shrieked the children. Emma stumbled to the side in shock, breast feathers standing on end, and the kids erupted into high-pitched peals of laughter.

stupid stupid stupid kids mean kids hope they crack their heads open and die

"It's the Blair Witch!" One kid, a male dragonfly, declared. He then turned to his friends and added, "I wearned that fwom my big sister!"

"No, dummy!" A small kookaburra said, hitting the dragonfly's wing. "The Blair Witch is in Minn-ee-soda!" She fluffed her feathers and puffed out her chest proudly. "I know that 'cause I'm smart!"

"Mini Soda?" The dragonfly blinked. "That's a place?"

"Oooo, I want a soda!!" Piped up a Hydra with pink and white spotted wings. She jumped up, running to the open garage. "Mommy! Mommyyyyy!! Can I have a soda?!"

"Mini Soda isn't a place, nimrod!" A firefly girl said.

"Is too!" The kookaburra barked.

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Guys, why don't we just ask the witch?" The dragonfly said.

"Oh, that's a good idea!" The firefly turned to Emma. "Hey! Hey, Miss Scary Witch Lady? Where did you come from?"

Emma stared back at them in silence. Her ears felt like they were on fire with shame, but she was glad the angry blush didn't appear on the cream and black flesh. Was she really being picked on by a bunch of five-year-olds? How much more pathetic could she get?

"Sheesh," The dragonfly muttered. "We jus' twyin' to make smwall talk. You don' need to get all angery and ignore us."

"What did you expect?" The kookaburra said. "She's a dummy hybrid. Everyone knows how stupid they are. My mommy said they were born with less brains than us, so they're not as smart!"

Emma whipped her head around sharply, flared her wings and feathers, and glowered at the group fiercely. They all squealed in fear, two of them leaping behind bushes to hide, while the kookaburra froze in place, her wings half-open like she wanted to fly away but couldn't get her body to move. They sat exactly where Emma wanted and she reached inside of herself for that strength, that courage, that power so she could exact her revenge.

break their necks or cut their throats or rip their organs out they called me a witch i'm not a witch i'll show them what a monster really looks like oh claws i wish you would grow so i could rip into them

And then, Emma blinked, and her seized muscles relaxed, stinging slightly from lactic acid buildup that she hadn't even realized was happening. Sweat was beaded on her brow. The sunlight was starting to make her eyes sore. The children looked very uncomfortable.

what was that

Emma released a breath and her lungs ached like they hadn't taken in air in centuries. She shook her head and hurried down the sidewalk, feeling dizzy and dazed. Sweat ran in salty trails down her flushed face and she swiped the streams away.

Why did her claws suddenly look longer than they were before? She had definitely chewed them down to the quick in her last period...

The dull ache of her cloaca brought Emma back to her senses. She forgot about her claws, not giving it much attention. It didn't matter.

Her bladder hurt and her head hurt and her tummy hurt and everything hurt by the time she got to a house as old as time itself. She stopped and stared up at it, one foot on the ruined property.

It was like one of those houses that tourists would go to see on plantations, one of the ones that had rooms that were perfectly symmetrical and all painted a different color. It was situated more into the huge oak trees than the other homes in the neighborhood, right in front of a murky pond that was crawling with aquatic plants and frogs.

The house was swathed by tendrils of ivy climbing their way towards the roof that was missing several shingles and splotched with patches of emerald green moss. The weathered wood was a chalk color, paint peeling and flaking off, and black peppering along its breast. The windows were tinted a deep brown and covered up by drapes, many of them cracked. The yard was a sea of weeds and the walkway leading up to the house was lined with overgrown, underkept trees; their ebony branches bore too many leaves and blotted out most sunlight from coming down on the property. The very age of the cottage was shown in its deterioration.

This was no place for any child to be raised.

Withered brown leaves rustled in the ghostly wind. This part of the street was almost silent, if not for the wailing gust, the crackle of fronds, and the distant shrieks of happy children playing. Black tires of a passing car trampled over the dead blades scattered on the edge of the poorly-kept street, the crunching of their filaments like bones beneath a hammer. A flurry of brown leaves swept across Emma's feet.

Above, the sky was awash with low churning white clouds. Towering trees with ebony branches reached down far, almost blocking the way. Their bushy twigs grabbed like fingers, clawing at Emma's face and wings as she finally trekked up the driveway. The brittle limbs snapped and fell as kindling onto the ground when brushed away. They too cracked beneath footfalls as Emma made her way up to the stoop, across the cracked sidewalk, and through reaching snarls of weeds sprouting from the overgrown yard. The porch creaked beneath her weight, and for a split second, as she always did when mounting it, she feared it might cave in, but the old wood held together firmly despite its age.

A familiar feeling of fear shivered through her. The old car was in the driveway; her Mama was home.

She wanted Mama to hold her.

Emma spent a full minute searching for the spare house key because she forgot hers and didn't want to disturb Mama by knocking. She found it hidden in the underbrush of overgrown, yellowing foliage encircling the stoop. Huffing, she shoved the key into the keyhole; there were cracks inside the frame and the hinges were green. It looked like it would fall over if the curved doorknob was yanked too hard.

The tumblers of a locking mechanism fell away with a grinding crack. When the front door was pulled open, the hinges protested with a deafening creak, sounding as though the rotten wood was splintering even as the heavy door scraped along the floor.

"Mama," Emma called into the candle-lit, sigil-covered house, "Mama! I'm home!" 

Malinda R. Nolan 

Malinda Nolan was a woman of many faces, and not in the mentally ill sort of way, although some people assumed she may have been harboring multiple personality disorders within her wretched brain. She had many masks to wear, some cold and stoic, others sinister and wicked, and a few that may have even been sweet and nurturing. When she was at a local diner she worked at in town, several customers reported how she would "look at them like she was assessing their souls", like she was judging whether or not their bodies were good enough to cut up and add to her bubbling cauldron.

Yes, Malinda Nolan was not all there. She was like a voodoo queen on crack, as local teenagers described. And, as vulgar and childish as that description was, it was true. She saw voodoo as some sort of religion that even the actual people who worked with voodoo thought she took it too far. Which was saying a lot because those people were nutjobs, too.

Many people thought Malinda would never delve into the sexual world of intercourse, what with all her screws loose that warded away most men and her extreme devotion towards black magic that took up all her attention, so it was quite shocking to hear the screams that erupted from the Nolan property August 27th, 2005. Police were called, but by the time they located the distress in the surrounding swampy woods, they thought they were too late. There was blood soaked into the grass, creating small red-brown puddles in the mud. Strange symbols created from twigs hung from the trees and there was a small fire burning, where herbs and other incenses were being fried. And then they saw the woman rocking back and forth in between a snarl of low-hanging branches, muttering incantations to herself, holding a tiny red baby with tufts of brownish hair to her left breast and everything clicked into place.

There was another baby. A little boy. Stillborn. His corpse was carelessly discarded to the side in the grass, shriveled and motionless.

Several people believed this woman was not fit to raise a child for obvious reasons, but police had no right to take a baby away from its mother, so the infant stayed and grew up in the house she was born near. It wasn't like there was any place she could go, anyway. Malinda’s husband was nowhere to be found.

Richard Nolan is–was– had been a mountain of a man. His arms were like truck tires, round and firm to the touch. He had broad shoulders, a barrel chest, and a huge body to go along with his already giant frame. Coppery gold hair framed his head and his bright sapphire blue eyes struck a stare that could put someone six feet under. The deep mahogany vampire bat wings he flaunted proudly from his back were massive and powerful. Every single aspect of the man's body boasted of an indestructible juggernaut.

And yet, he hadn't been seen in fifteen years.

Rumors bubbled up. They always did. Some speculated he ran away to avoid the burden of taking care of a mutant child or to simply get away from his insane wife. Others, mainly rowdy teenagers itching for drama, said Miriam killed him and sacrificed his body to the voodoo gods. Because of that, stories of the Nolan bungalow being haunted were created, although there was no proof of anything of the sort. Because they weren't true. But Malinda Nolan had been out to kill.

Her girl-spawn had barely been a few months old at the time. She laid in her homemade crib, gurgling and laughing, staring with strange blue eyes up at a mobile that was made for her. Tiny wings beat joyfully in the air, her little ears wiggling around without a care in the world. Miriam crept up to her and aimed a carved wooden spear for her heart.

Richard stopped her.

"You shall name her Emma," He had rumbled, easing Malinda’s hand back to her side.

"Strange name." Malinda had observed.

"For a strange child." Richard had said.

"Hm." Malinda had peered down at the wriggling little beast. "I suppose that does make it slightly more monstrous."

"Yes," Richard had said. "Wait and see."

And then, he was gone, disappearing into the night and never coming back.

Malinda should not have let him stop her.

The child, of course, did not know this.

Home

Friday, 20th

Emma slipped through the front door, but not without noticing a few neighbors peeking avidly out of their own windows, ears pricked. The whole neighborhood, possibly even the entire city, was always so interested in every little detail of the Nolan family's lives. At least a few of them actually had the decency to duck back inside when they saw her coming up the sidewalk. One didn't even notice her; it seemed because he was still staring when she disappeared inside, while another was only pretending not to snoop while she fussed unnecessarily over her rose garden.

damn stupid woman wish she'd go blind

The smell of cinnamon drifted through the entrance hallway. Red and orange candles were lit up throughout the downstairs area; Mama always preferred their warm glow over the overhead lights' harsh fluorescence. Mama's favorite radio station, AQI Radio, could be heard playing from the kitchen, along with the sound of singing.

Mama's singing.

A giddy tingling sensation zipped up through Emma's spine. She always loved the sound of Mama's singing. Her voice was so silken and honey-slicked, like the gentle croon of an angel. Emma said she should join a gospel, that she would be the best singer in the entire group, but Mama would always wave this off with a dismissive hand and a chuckle.

Emma ventured further into the house, feeling lighter and lighter with each step. She entered the robin egg blue lounge, where an ancient grandfather clock clucked peacefully against the wall. There were many paintings of nature and voodoo here, but Emma's favorite was the photo of ducklings swimming with their mother in a crystal clear pond. It radiated so much innocence, unlike all the other paintings of black magic and darkness. It was put up beside a giant cow skull with various twanas hanging from its long horns, above the stone fireplace. Emma did her best to never look at that decoration in particular.

Weaving around the rather ugly green felt couch and two moth-eaten velvet throne chairs facing each other, Emma glided into the kitchen. It was an old kitchen indeed, painted pale pink with an oven that squealed like a dying pig when opened and a sputtering gas stove, but everything worked perfectly fine for the two of them. A clock with different birds instead of numbers hung on the wall, but it was broken and played the wrong bird call when it hit a certain time.

And then, there was Mama, singing along to the song playing from an old radio on the counter, her back to Emma.

She was a moderately sized woman but had a strong, corded neck and incredibly sharp claws that she kept honed on a whetstone. Dark brown hair framed her face, which was quite beautiful in a weird, overzealous voodoo way. Reaching blonde roots slithered like snakes from her scalp, with only a few white hairs visible. Despite being in her forties, her complexion was more weathered by hardship and discipline than age. A single piercing golden-brown eye flickered when she finally noticed her daughter standing there, and a smile broke out on her pale pink lips.

"Mama," Emma said breathily, unable to bite back her giddy grin.

"Ah, Emma," Mama said, "there's my sweet girl." And then she opened her strong white-backed vulture wings out wide, and Emma darted into them instantly, nestling into her embrace. Mama smelled like honey and flour. "How was your day?"

Emma felt her lower stomach twinge, and she leaned a little closer into Mama's chest. She would keep her mouth shut about the incident at school for now. Mama was in a good mood; no need to go and mess that up.

"It was good," Emma answered her.

Mama hummed. "I see." She pulled away and turned back to the counter, where she had been shaping bread dough with her long Avem talons. "Dinner won't be ready for another hour."

"That's okay," Emma said. "I can wait."

Mama hummed again. Emma fidgeted anxiously behind her.

"Is everything alright, my darling?" Mama asked, concern evident in her smooth voice.

"Yes, Mama," Emma answered. "Just-- umm-- may I go shower?"

Mama chuckled. "Of course, dear."

"Thank you, Mama." Emma gave her another quick hug, then scurried out to the creaky staircase. On the way up, she passed The Green Room, which she was never allowed to enter.

Emma's bedroom was at the front of the house, near the balcony, though Mama had boarded up the doors leading out onto it for some reason. She walked inside and took a moment to think while she was rooting through her dresser. She tried to remember what Miss Allen and Coach Dickinson had told her. About what she was going through was...

"Normal." Miss Allen said. "It's perfectly normal, Emma. Every Vesper goes through it."

Emma whimpered. The spattered mess across her body had been wiped away by Coach Dickinson, a humiliation she would never be able to live down, and she was now fully dressed again, but her clothes felt too tight, especially around her groin. It felt like there were live eels writhing inside of her. She squirmed on the grey couch she was seated on in Coach Dickinson's office, a place where most students were forbidden to go into.

"My skin feels weird," Emma whispered. "I-I'm hot..."

Coach Dickinson opened one wing around her shoulders. Miss Allen frowned. Emma looked up at them with shiny, wet blue eyes and a glazed expression.

"It hurts," She croaked.

"I know, sweetheart." Miss Allen murmured.

"What did I do?"

"What?"

Emma shifted uncomfortably. Guilt surged through her, along with another painful sensation in her lower stomach. She whimpered again.

"What did I do?" She asked again. "I-I've never drank blood before! I-I know I didn't!"

Miss Allen and Coach Dickinson looked baffled and confused, and Emma wasn't sure how she should feel about that.

"No, no, Emma," Coach Dickinson said quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong, I promise. Maybe you just forgot."

"Yes," Miss Allen nodded. "You're a very good girl. All Vespers go through this, like I said. It's completely normal."

"But--but I'm bleeding !" Emma cried woefully. She could feel drops of plasma squeeze slickly out of her cloaca and she cringed. "You shouldn't-- it's not-- black-- I-I'm gonna bleed to death !"

Coach Dickinson was frowning again, and Emma easily recognized it as a frown of pity. That was the expression most adults wear when they look at her.

"You aren't, Emma," Miss Allen said patiently. "It'll stop in a little while. And it's not even blood, so you'll be okay."

Emma squirmed again, wanting it to stop now. She looked up at the teachers helplessly.

Miss Allen sighed, and Emma instinctively shrunk away. Instead of being struck, however, her teacher eased her own wing around her shaking shoulders, overlapping Coach Dickinson’s, and pulled her in close against her side.

"Oh, Emma..." She murmured, stroking her wet hair. "You poor, poor girl..."

Miss Allen and Coach Dickinson had then gone on to explain the process of the plasma release. It sounded awful. Was blood really that appetizing that Vespers were okay with bleeding out black stuff?

The sharp ache in her lower stomach returned like a tug on her small intestines. She put her hand between her legs but drew no blood (this time). A new feeling rose in Emma's sore chest, a yearning, an ache. She felt suddenly cold, as if the sun could no longer warm her. This was it, then, the change was here.

Would she still be Emma after it was all over? Or would she be someone new?

Would being someone new be all that bad?

Emma swiped some looser, fresh clothes from her dresser and then scurried her way into the bathroom. She didn't want to turn on the lights, so she lit a few candles instead, letting their warm glow fill the small space.

With muscles that were weak with fatigue, she slowly began to undress. First her overalls, then her white and baby blue flannel, her cream-colored bra, and finally her underwear. The puffy pad she had on was spotted with large black stains that looked like gross bodily jelly. It was wilting already, so she carefully removed it and replaced it with one of the many others she had in the cabinets, just in case her body still wasn't done releasing the fluids caused by something she knew for a fact she never drank.

After throwing away the pad she wadded up with toilet paper, Emma stepped into the bathtub and cranked the faucet handle.

Showering was agony.

Although the hot water had offered her a brief respite from the deep, otherworldly chill that had settled into her body, there was no escaping the pain. Each beating droplet against her limbs felt like a fresh wasp sting stabbing into her muscles and the flesh on her stomach, taut and uncomfortably bloated, pulsed and throbbed with agony every time she moved.

Like just a few minutes ago, she reached between her legs, and it came back sticky and black.

The smell of the plasma was pungent and unnatural. It was nothing like real blood at all. It was more like the rot from her deteriorating insides as her own mutated body caused her to rapidly decay. It made her feel sick, so she stuck her hand under the spray of liquid fire shooting out from the showerhead and didn't pull it back until all the plasma was gone.

The smell remained on her hand.

Emma scrubbed vigorously between her legs, which seemed to be permanently stained. Black would smear across her pale flesh each time her cloaca bled again, and she did her best to wipe the trails away with an itchy sponge. By the time she finally gave up, her inner thighs felt chafed and raw.

Emma took to just watching the water and beads of soap run down the slightly rusted drain. Slowly, she sat down, knees bent up to her chest, legs spread slightly, wings limply drooped. Black drooled down the floor of the shower to join the suds down into the pipes.

This reminded her of a time when she was eleven and was violently ill in the shower. She remembered looking up, slumped heavily over the rim of the tub, still in all her clothes, and seeing Mama in the doorway. She had been shaking her head but had a morbidly amused glint in her eye. Then, chuckling darkly, she was saying, "You shouldn't have gotten--"

"--drunk," Said Emma, her fists clenched determinedly at her sides and her heart hammering in her throat.

The figure in the armchair in front of her turned to look at the doorway and squinted up at her for a moment as though trying to figure out who she was. And then it sagged back into the chair with an air of disappointment. Like it had been expecting someone else, someone better.

Emma stared back through the thick mop of dirty blonde hair that had started to hang in her eyes lately because she'd been too lazy to cut it.

She was eleven and standing in the doorway of the house she'd grown up in, feet squared in her tattered shoes (she hadn't gone and gotten herself a new pair in a while, though she was long since overdue) and jaw set grimly.

"...You're what?" Said the figure slowly, her weathered, thick-knuckled hands clutching a wooden box.

"I'm drunk, Mama," Emma said again, feeling a thrill that was equal parts excitement and terror run through her from head to toe as she said the scandalous words. She watched those dark eyes apprehensively, dimly aware through the buzz of alcohol that she was shivering.

Later, on nights when she had nothing better to think about (there would be a lot of nights like that), she would dramatize this event in her head. She'd think about what might have happened if she'd been yelled at, or sent to her closet, or even slapped across the face and sent sprawling. It wasn't that she did this to feel sorry for herself or to pretend that it had been worse than it actually was.

The truth was that all of those outcomes were things she wished had happened more than what actually had.

From the worn-out old armchair, the figure stared at her a moment longer, before simply shaking its head in silent apathy and looking back down at the box.

"This is why I didn't keep yours," Said Malinda Nolan, dismissively.

And then Emma had trudged off, disappointed by the lack of reaction. Usually, her Mama would throw an absolute fit over the littlest things she did, but the night she drank alcohol was barren of any dramatics.

An hour later, she would violently heave up all the whiskey she ingested from her system in the shower. It burned more than it did on the way down and made her cry helplessly for her Mama, who knelt by the bathtub and stroked her hair like she was a dog while she threw up all over herself. Mama had cradled her head against her chest when she was finished, mouth and chin still dripping with vomit, and told her what an evil little imp she was in a voice like sweet caramel.

Emma shook her head, scattering droplets across the shower walls and curtain. She looked down and saw a small sea of plasma rippling around her feet. Her nose curled in disgust, and she backed up further against the back of the tub.

Minutes passed. Emma's mind was fuzzy and blank for most of the time she sat in the water and her own plasma. Her cloaca began to hurt at one point and throbbed steadily with her beating heart.

When it was eventually time to get out, she found that the heat of the water had soaked the energy right out of her, and it took everything in her to get dressed again instead of just curling up naked in the corner of the shower and passing out.

The cuts splattering her figure, those that hadn't scabbed over yet, were gooey and red, the flesh around their edges white and puckered from the water. They burned faintly as she stepped back out of the shower's steamy shelter and into the cold air of the rest of the house.

The light from the candle flames cast her gaunt features in harsher contrast when she peered into the mirror. Her hollow cheeks nearly became empty holes, and her sunken eye sockets were black caves. Still, the shiny blue of her eyes was visible even in the cavernous puncture. The fire's glow reflected off the stygian liquid steel of rolling droplets over her emaciated frame.

The sight of the deathlike girl would send anyone but Mama screaming into the night.

Regret

Friday, 20th

Moonlight cast silver streams on Kevin's smooth, glowing skin, making him look like a god of the night above Shelby. Each beat of his fluffy mountain peacock-pheasant wings sent pangs of admiration crackling throughout Shelby's body like lightning bolts of love, soothing her mind of all its worries with her warmth. And that feeling only got stronger when he would spin around to grin at her, the moon a bright backdrop behind him, choppy brown hair blowing in the breeze, deep blue eyes like a mystical ocean in the night.

Everything felt good and okay and wonderful again when Kevin was with her, holding her, talking to her, flying with her, loving her. She thought that nothing could possibly bring her down when her boyfriend was there by her side.

And yet, she still couldn't get the image of Emma Nolan's naked body covered in plasma on the floor out of her head.

Shelby sighed heavily, and Kevin wheeled around in the sky to face her, blinking.

"Am I really that slow?" He said, then looked at his beating wings, inspecting them closely. "I thought I got the feathers down to the perfect length this time... I read clipping them would make you go faster, but now I think I just got tricked."

Shelby managed to laugh. "No, it's not you, you big silly," She nudged him playfully with one of her arms. "It's--something else..."

Kevin tilted his head. "What is it?" Worry flashed across his expression, and Shelby couldn't help but feel a flutter of love flap in her chest. She loved when her boyfriend got like this, all concerned over her, even over the littlest things. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Shelby said. She situated herself on an air current with a sigh, shifting into a hover only Cimexs could do, while Kevin had to pump his wings to stay eye level with her. "It's just-- I did something...not good today."

"Oh no," Kevin gasped. "Not good?"

Shelby shoved him. "I'm serious!"

Kevin laughed even as he fumbled in the sky. "I know! I know!" He said. "Come on, tell me about it."

They swooped down to the ground so Shelby could tell the shameful story.

It was a warm autumn night, and they had been flying around the city, just enjoying each other's presence. They landed near some greenery on the further outskirts of New Orleans, and Shelby ducked under a tree that was wrapped in blooming vines of pink-white dog roses, pale ghost petals shivering in the breeze. Kevin came up beside her, and they both sat on a low-hanging branch that was practically grown to sit and tell your boyfriend about the awful bullying you participated in today.

"Did you...hear about the Emma Nolan incident today?" Shelby eventually choked out hesitantly.

Kevin actually thought for a moment, as if a fifteen-year-old girl bleeding plasma all over herself and thinking she was dying hadn't been the talk of the entire school.

"Vaguely, yeah," He finally said. "I don't get into that kind of drama, though. I tend to stay away from it, you know?"

Shelby did know, and that sent fear ricocheting through her body when she remembered it. Of course, Kevin didn't like discourse- he'd told her several times before! How could she be so stupid?

Kevin peered at her closely, and she knew it was too late to turn back now.

"What do Emma Nolan and her results of eating habits have to do with you?" Kevin asked her.

Shelby swallowed thickly. Fear pounded heavily at her brain, fear of Kevin breaking up with her when she told him and leaving her all alone--but didn't she deserve that? What she did was horrible. She didn't deserve a boyfriend after harassing a poor little girl, ESPECIALLY when she herself was eighteen and technically an adult.

"I--" Her words caught in her throat for a moment, but Kevin's patient, loving gaze made them all come tumbling out. "I was in there. With her. In the pool." She lowered her head in shame. "I--yelled at her with everyone..."

Kevin just looked at her for a long time, moonlight glinting in his deep blue eyes and making them look like they were glowing. Then, he sucked in an impressed breath and said, "You're right. Not good."

Shelby felt a cold slicing of fear slash through her, but then Kevin's grave expression shifted into a thoughtful smile. He ran a hand down an ivy-coiled section of the tree and mused, "I once fought a kid over a beaded necklace during Mardi Gras."

Shelby blinked at him.

"I did!" Kevin insisted. "It was this really pretty green color and I thought it went very nicely with my feathers." He ruffled his black-brown wings as if to prove a point. Each quill had a blue-green spot on it that made it look like his plumage was covered in watchful eyes. "But then this locust jerkwad thought they went good with his wings, which, by the way, they didn't, and, then we fought over it."

"This is hardly the same thing." Shelby deadpanned.

"Oh, I know," Kevin said. "I just didn't want you to feel like the only bad person. Not that you are! I just don't want you to feel like one. That's what I meant. You know?"

Shelby managed a laugh. "Yeah. I do." She then sighed and huddled her wings in close, curling and uncurling her antennae like she would do when nervous. "What do I do?"

"Have you apologized yet?" Kevin asked.

"Yes."

"And?"

"Nothing." Shelby sighed again. "She just stared at me. She looked so scared, Kevin..."

"I mean, I would be, too," Kevin said, and Shelby hit him with one of her wings. "I'm just saying!"

"I know I don't deserve her forgiveness, but still..." Shelby said. "I want to make things right."

"That's a good outlook on things," Kevin said. A flurry of snowy pink petals swirled down from the tree and over their shoulders. "I mean-- what did Emma Nolan ever do to any of us?"

Poet

Monday, 23rd

Mr. Glickman’s creative writing class was one of those rare cases where everyone wanted to be in it, regardless of whether they could write or not. And for a good reason, too. He was a laid back, supportive, jolly man who always made his lessons fun and engaging. His room was like no other, either, airy and full of light. He rarely ever turned on the overhead lights, opting to instead let the sun come in from blue-and gold-tinted windows he had paid for to be put in himself.

A jungle of indoor plants snarled the interior, all fit with small golden plaques with names on them (one of the best assignments they had yet was to choose a plant and write a story about it; Shelby, personally, had chosen Hornet, the sassy lesbian honeysuckle). Shined mahogany bookshelves were arranged all around the room with their books sorted precisely in alphabetical order. Putting any borrowed books back into the right place was a rule even the most mischievous of students obeyed. Racks and drawers full of papers and pencils and pens of every color were set up for everyone's writing pleasure, and there were several places to sit and write when it was time to work. Sometimes the black and pink bungee chair, sometimes the big blue bean bag or the strange egg-shaped cubbyhole you could climb into and nestle in the blankets and pillows that filled it.

The tables were assorted in a very different way, too. There were six in total: Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, Adventure, and Historical. At the beginning of the year, students got to pick their seats at whatever genre table they were most interested in, letting people meet others with the same interests. Or, if you were like Shelby, you just bustled into the same table with all your friends.

Mr. Glickman was her first class of the day and was always what she needed to get energized for the rest of school. The sun was out again, bleeding its early Monday morning light through the tinted windows and casting beams of gold and blue across the room. All her friends, including her handsome Kevin, were already inside when she got there, along with a few others. Winnie was sharpening several pencils at the expensive electric pencil sharpener by the door, while Linda looked through the Q-T selection of books, and Kaylee, Jules, and Kevin were sitting at the table they all had claimed at the beginning of the year: Fantasy (although Shelby had debated on going to the Romance table, several of her friends didn't like the romance genre, and Kaylee had proclaimed that the "gang had to stick together," so she gave up that option).

"Shelbs!!" Kaylee cried gleefully, throwing her arms in the air.

Shelby smiled as she walked over, sitting beside Kevin. The two shared a quick kiss.

"Morning, gang," Shelby said. "What's the tea?"

"Oh, just the usual stuff," Jules said, flicking her hand back and forth. "School, drama, anarchy."

"Ah, I see," Shelby nodded sagely. "Well, I got this new dress this weekend, and I'm not sure if I should return it or not. I think it makes me look fat."

The others snorted, while Winnie suddenly barked, "Shut up, Shelby! Don't say that! You look perfect!"

They all stared at her in silence, watching as her face slowly faded to a light red color, which matched perfectly with her already-red hair. She cleared her throat awkwardly, folding her big ears back.

"What? I'm just saying what we're all thinking!" She said, and then frantically began sharpening her pencils again. The table laughed and nodded knowingly.

"What color is it?" Kaylee asked Shelby. "The dress?"

"Yellow," Shelby answered.

"Yellow is your color," Linda said, walking over and sitting down with The Great Gatsby in her hands.

"Why, thank you!"

"You are a lucky guy!" Jules said to Kevin.

Kevin grinned brightly and leaned his head against his girlfriend's. He sighed dreamily. "I know..."

Laughter and snickers and whispers suddenly bubbled loudly from the hallway, seeping in through the open door. A moment later, Emma entered wearing an oversized, rather ugly shade of pale yellow sweater and a long maroon skirt with green plaid markings on it. She dragged her feet as she walked, not looking up, clutching her binders and folders close to her chest.

Seeing her sent a sharp pang of guilt lancing through Shelby.

She had desperately tried to forget about Emma Nolan over the weekend, partially succeeding in that task, even when her parents confronted her about it. But seeing the pathetic girl again sent all her shame come barreling back into her at full force. She could now see that she and her friends had ruined this class, once a place of serenity and peace, for Emma. Emma seemed...scared to even be attending.

"Well, if it isn't the beast herself!" Kaylee exclaimed. She jumped up and blocked Emma's path, causing the younger and much scrawnier girl to reel back in fright. "How's your pussy, witch? Get it all out? I hope you didn't piss all over yourself like on Friday."

Shelby tried to laugh along with Jules, Linda, and Winnie, but the sound raked her throat fiercely like talons of fire. She glanced to the side and saw that Kevin had his jaw set firmly and a grim look in his eyes.

"Leave her alone, Kaylee," Kevin said.

Emma tried to dodge around Kaylee to get to her table, but Kaylee snapped out one wing, and she reared away again like she thought she would be burned if they were to make contact.

"Come on, witch!" Kaylee spread her arms and wings in a grand gesture, smirking widely. Everyone in the class, even people out in the hallway, was watching, now. "Tell us! Or would you prefer to show us?"

She groped for Emma's skirt, like she actually had the audacity to pull it down, and then, out of the blue, yelped as she reeled backward as if she had been struck in the face by a blunt object.

Shelby blinked in shock. What happened? Nothing had touched her friend as far as she could see, and she was right there the entire time. She shuddered, and her skin began to crawl with goosebumps.

"Damn, bitch! What happened?" A great black hornet Cimex at the Sci-Fi table asked over the laughter that had filled the room.

Kaylee steadied herself instantly, her face inflamed with rage. She glared at the black hornet, and her stare was filled with enough hate to make him snap his mouth shut immediately.

"What are you laughing at?" She snarled. Her head whipped around to Emma. "The goddamn BITCH HIT ME!! "

Is that what happened? Did Emma trip or push Kaylee? Had she finally snapped? But Emma hadn't moved her arms or legs or wings at all when Kaylee recoiled...

Shelby jerked out of her speculations when she saw that Kaylee was advancing on Emma with a murderous look in her eyes. Emma flinched away, as if she was expecting to be struck, and then there was suddenly the clattering of a chair to Shelby's left; Kevin was standing in between Kaylee and Emma.

"What are you doing?" Kaylee demanded.

"You're being stupid, Kaylee." Kevin said calmly. "If you hit her, you're definitely going to be thrown out of school. Your parents wouldn't be too happy about that."

Kaylee growled. "You don't know shit about how my parents would react." She said. "If anything, they'll be proud of me beating the hell out of a lowly mutant. Less of them in the world, the better."

Emma's ears drooped, and she tried to hide herself in her wings. Kevin stayed firmly rooted in front of her, and although his expression remained calm, Shelby could see flickers of flames light in his eyes. The feathers on his ear tufts were ruffling and puffing up like they did when he was mad, as were his crest feathers. Kevin's anger was not easily provoked, but it was not something to trifle with.

"Don't be a bitch." Kevin warned lowly.

"Why are you defending her?" Kaylee asked, crossing her arms like a child who didn't get the toy they wanted. "She's a worthless hybrid!"

"Just because she's a hybrid doesn't mean she's worthless," Kevin said. "Just like how being a pureblood doesn't mean you're important."

An explosion of "OOOH's" erupted throughout the room. Kaylee's face grew beat red with rage, but she wasn't unable to clap back, so she just cast one last dark glare at Emma and then let her anger snuff itself out for now. She returned to her chair like nothing happened.

Kevin turned to Emma, who was staring up at him with wide eyes as if he were one of goddesses that had come down to rescue her.

"Are you alright?" Kevin asked. He reached out to set a hand on Emma's shoulder, but respectfully pulled it back when Emma flinched away. "Don't listen to her. She's just being a jerk." He leaned in, and Shelby had to strain her ears to hear him whisper, "Per usual." And then he leaned back and flashed Emma a dazzling smile that made Emma get an expression on her face that said she's never been smiled at like that before.

"Th-th-thank you..." Emma choked out, and then skittered past her to the Horror table, which she shared all alone ("Of course that crazy bitch would choose horror" was something Jules had muttered the first day of class when Emma had chosen that genre).

Kevin righted his chair and sat back down, looking like a true savior.

"Well, aren't you just a knight in shining armor." Kaylee said bitterly, and Kevin grinned at her innocently.

"What can I say?" He said with a shrug. "I can never pass up the chance to be the hero to a poor damsel in distress."

The bell rang a moment later, and everyone who wasn't already sitting down bustled over to their specific table. First period was the smallest class, with Shelby and her five friends obviously at Fantasy, three kids at Sci-Fi, two girls at Romance, three more at Adventure, no one at Historical, and then Emma all alone at Horror. Writing utensils and notebooks filled to the brim with stories and projects were brought out as Mr. Glickman entered from the hall.

"Good morning, children!" He chimed happily, his blue morpho wings glistening faintly in the light pouring in through the tinted windows. "Let's get this show on the road!"

After the initial opening for class, the lesson quickly curved into the topic of an assignment the students had been given last Friday, probably the only okay thing that happened on that day (aside from Shelby's fly with Kevin, of course).

"As you know," Mr. Glickman said, "last Friday, I gave you all the task to write your own poem after selecting a word from my hat." He held up the bedazzled top hat for reference. "Now we are going to read them! So..." He scanned the class, bypassing the people who usually always read first, like Winnie and Shelby and the green lacewing Cimex with glasses in Adventure, for now. A smile broke out on his face. "Emma Nolan!"

Emma's head whipped up so fast Shelby was surprised her neck didn't break. She had been listlessly twirling a strand of her hair around a claw and writing in her small notebook with a black pen, which she accidentally sent flying across the room behind her when she was called on.

"Present," She sputtered.

"It's not roll call, Emma," Mr. Glickman said gently.

"Idiot," Jules muttered, rolling her eyes, and Mr. Glickman shot a glare at her and some of the other giggling students. He was one of few teachers who actually made an effort to stop the constant bullying Emma got in class.

"Did you write a poem?" Mr. Glickman asked. His voice was so patient and kind, his gaze merciful and lacking any irritation or scorn, even though Emma was floundering like a useless cow in a cattle chute. He never yelled at Emma or even got the slightest bit annoyed with her, even when she was being completely incompetent and probably deserved a good rapping on the knuckles with a ruler to get her head back on straight.

"Oh-- Y-yes, sir." Emma nodded.

"Why don't you come up and read it to us?"

That seemed to be a death sentence for Emma, who became very rigid and pale. She opened and closed her mouth like a weird-eyed fish out of water, then finally choked out, "D-do I have to?"

Mr. Glickman tilted his head at her, sympathy in his gaze. "No," He said. "But I would love to hear what you wrote."

Emma's drooped ears perked up slightly, a new light flickering ever so slightly in her eyes. "You would?" She squeaked.

"Yes, Emma," Mr. Glickman smiled, and Shelby saw that he was telling the truth. He was genuinely interested in what Emma had written.

Emma thought for a second, then grabbed her notebook, stood up, and said, "Okay."

Shyly, with her head angled to the floor, Emma shuffled up to the short stage-like platform at the front of the class used for reading out loud. Mr. Glickman motioned for her to sit in the big black leather computer chair he would let students use when presenting, but she shook her head, clearly too tense and nervous to sit down. Mr. Glickman respected her choice and didn't push her.

"What was the word you selected, Emma?" Mr. Glickman asked.

"Umm-- Moon." Emma answered.

"And what is the name of your poem?"

Emma fumbled. "Fate Speaker."

"Oh my god." Kaylee said loudly. Mr. Glickman shot her a sharp look, and she shut her mouth instantly.

"Go ahead, Emma. Whenever you're ready." Mr. Glickman said kindly.

It took a moment and a few deep breaths for Emma to find her voice, but she eventually gathered all her courage and began to read:

"Beware the one born of the sun and the moon

Seething with darkness and sunken in lies."

A few giggles and snickers and mocking whispers whisked through the class, but Mr. Glickman shut them down quickly. Emma looked at him fearfully, and he gave her an encouraging nod to go on.

"Awakened from the blood of an unwanted womb

And drenched in the carnage of the futures she hides."

Emma lost some of the tension in her wings, easing them back down into a more relaxed position. A strange flicker lit up in her eyes, like the first silvery wisps of a fresh flame.

"Beware the one born of the sun and the moon

With too many secrets and too many eyes."

Emma released a shaky breath and raised her glowing grey eyes.

Silence.

Mr. Glickman would have said anything, but he still seemed to be too enamored to speak, in awe at his timid student's raw poem.

Then, Jules raised one of her hands and spoke without waiting to be called on, "Shouldn't people like that be seen as a threat?"

Mr. Glickman blinked at her, his eyebrows furrowing together. "People like what, Jules?" He asked cautiously, falling right into Jules's trap.

"Creepy mentally ill people," Jules said blithely.

Emma flinched back as if she had been struck and hunched her wings around her neck. Her fingers grip tightly around the edges of her notebook, staring at her poem with a sudden expression of shame and hatred and disgust.

"Yeah, shouldn't she be sent to the counselor for that? Or a mental hospital?" Linda piped up.

Mr. Glickman glared at all of them. " Does anyone have anything to say about the poem? " He said, steering the lesson back on track without giving Jules or Linda any attention.

"It was disturbing." Kaylee offered. "I think that's the most little Emma has ever said without stuttering before! Good job! Maybe witches can talk like people after all!"

Laughter erupted in the classroom, far too much for Mr. Glickman to wrangle. Emma shrunk back, like she was hoping she could disappear right into the wall, and Shelby thought she could see tears shining in her eyes.

"Got anything else to share with us, sweetheart?" Kaylee asked in a sickly sweet voice. "Or are you done scaring u-- OW!!" She whipped her head around to Kevin. "Did you just kick me?!"

"I know nothing of that," Kevin said innocently, then turned to Mr. Glickman with a smile. "I thought Emma's poem was really good! Very mysterious. I like mysterious."

Emma's eyes were wide and lit up, like that had been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, and a bright pink blush dusted her cheeks. Shelby's heart melted at the way her ears were winging around her head in joy.

"Yes!" Mr. Glickman nodded his head enthusiastically. "Mysterious! That is a great way to describe Emma's wonderful poem." He smiled at Kevin, then at Emma. "Thank you for reading, Emma. You did very good."

Emma dipped her head in thanks and hurried back to her table. When she sat back down, she immediately glanced at Kevin, a wistful look of adoration in her eyes. Shelby noticed it, and things began to click together in her brain.

"Kevin," Mr. Glickman said, "since you spoke up, would you like to go next?"

Kevin shrugged coolly. "Sure." He stood up, grabbing his red spiral journal, and walked to the platform at the front of the class. Like Emma, he decided not to sit in the computer chair, opting to stand up tall before his peers.

"GO Kevin!!" His friends cheered from the Fantasy table, and he waved like the Queen of England.

"The word I got was 'winter','" He said, then looked down at the page he was opened up to in his journal. "Winter Mute. By Kevin Shield." He cleared his throat and then began reading smoothly about a cold winter night that seemed to be alive, roaring in subzero cries and flapping freezing wings. When he finished, applause and swoons filled the classroom. He beamed proudly, bowing his head.

"Excellent, Kevin!" Mr. Glickman said. "Class," He turned to the others. "Any comments?"

"It was amazing."

The marveled comment came before anyone else could say anything, spoken before Mr. Glickman had barely even finished his sentence. Emma had a thoughtful look in her shimmering eyes. A small smile was tugged at the corners of her pale lips and her ears were perked up fully.

"Amazing, yes!" Mr. Glickman said. "Excellent, Emma!"

"Yeah, so smart, witch." Kaylee tittered.

Like that, the light in Emma's eyes was gone. She looked away, suddenly ashamed. Kevin seemed to notice this on the platform and glared viciously at Kaylee.

"Shut up, Kaylee." He snarled lowly.

"Go on, Emma," Mr. Glickman said to his shy student. "Tell us your thoughts. What did you think about Kevin's poem?"

Emma looked back up, fidgeting, and then stuttered out, "Well-- Well, I-I think the poem tells a single story observation, you know? Like, this person is seen as cold and rude just by the way they look but are actually warm and friendly on the inside. But nobody knows because nobody cares to search for that light. So it stays hidden in the snow until someone decides to shovel it out."

Mr. Glickman beamed. Kaylee gave Shelby a "what is wrong with this girl?" sort of look, while Kevin looked vaguely rapt. He smiled at Emma, and Emma blushed madly.

"Excellent observation, Emma!" Mr. Glickman said.

"Yeah," Kevin agreed. "I think you have the poem more thought out that I do, and I'm the one who wrote it!"

Emma ducked her head with a shy smile. "Thanks," She whispered, and all the pieces fell into place in Shelby's head.

Did Emma like Kevin?

Shelby spent the rest of first period pondering this- Emma was hopelessly shy, but it could very well be possible. The way she looked at Kevin... There was some form of longing in her eyes. Like she wanted Kevin to like her--not even in a romantic way, just to--like her . As a person.

The bell startled Shelby out of her thoughts and she shook her head. Kevin had to run off quickly to get to his next class that was all the way on the other side of the school, and Winnie and Jules left in a hurry, too. Shelby was about to head out with Linda to the next class they shared when she noticed Emma still gathering her things.

"I'll meet you there, okay?" Shelby said to Linda.

Linda shrugged and nodded. "Okay!"

Shelby walked over to Emma, catching her best friend’s attention, who was still in the class and now watching them with interest.

"Hey, Emma," Shelby said.

Emma jumped and looked at Shelby, then over her shoulder, as if thinking she was talking to someone else. She blinked up at the older girl with big blue eyes, and Shelby could see so much painful anxiety in them.

"What you said about Kevin's poem was really, really nice," She said. "So smart, too! I don't think I would have ever been able to come up with something like that."

Emma continued to stare at her, frozen like a deer in headlights.

"Look-- Umm-- About Friday... I wanted to apologize. Again. What we did was really, really bad, and it never should have happened. I'm sorry."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

This time, it was Shelby's turn to flinch, and she stepped back as if she had just been shot. She looked down at Emma and was shocked to see pure rage blazing in her eyes, which flickered like lit embers. Her teeth were bared, mouth pulled back in a snarl to reveal flashing white fangs from her Vesper side, and her fists were clenched into shaking fists.

"Do you REALLY expect me to believe you?!" Emma cried. "All you and your friends have done is hurt me! Why are you apologizing NOW? I know you just want to cause me even more pain!"

"Oh no, Emma, no--"

Shelby reached for her, but the girl clawed her hand away, leaving thin scratches across the skin. She ducked under her arm and ran out of the classroom, leaving Shelby behind in shock.

"Well, well," Kaylee said, sauntering over with a chuckle. "The witch does have a temper after all! Maybe she'll cast a spell on you the next time that happens, hehe."

"I--" Shelby's words hitched for a moment. "I've never seen her angry before..."

Kaylee rolled her eyes and slung a wing around Shelby's shoulder. She began guiding her out of the classroom.

"Oh, who cares?" She said. "Just forget about it!"

But Shelby couldn't forget.

Especially when they stepped out of the class and saw Emma, among many others, staring at the graffiti scrawled across the wall.

"BURN THE NOLA WITCH"

Emma turned to Shelby with tears in her eyes, bared her teeth like a wounded animal, and then took off running down the hallway crying.

Guilt roared through Shelby, and, this time, she knew it would be staying for good.

Single Queen

Monday, 23rd

Emma hid out in the bathroom after she saw the writing on the walls, rocking back and forth in one of the back stalls and crying to herself until her throat ached and she felt like she couldn't breathe anymore.

The bathroom door opened and somebody walked in. She tried to keep quiet as the girl was reapplying her makeup in the mirror, but her lungs began to burn and she let out a choked sob that seemed to echo throughout the room.

Silence.

"Hello?" Called a voice Emma didn't know or recognize. "Are you okay?"

"I-I'm f-f-fine." Emma choked out.

"You don't sound fine." The girl observed. "Is this your stuff on the ground?"

Right. She had just thrown her belongings on the floor in her panic to get away from prying eyes to cry alone.

"U-umm--" Emma sniffled.

Outside the stall, she heard the shuffling of feet and the rustling of chitin against the sink counter. Emma saw the elegant curve of brahminy kite wings through the crack in the stall. Her binders and backpack were slid underneath the door a moment later.

"There." Said the stranger. "Just so nobody will take it if anyone else comes in." She paused for a moment. "Are you alright?"

Emma tried to answer, to lie, but all that came out of her mouth was a sob. She curled up tighter in the stall, burying her face in her knees. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks like streams of molten lava.

The girl outside made a sympathetic noise. "You poor thing." She said. "Crying in the bathroom at school. I know that feeling."

Emma's crying halted for a moment. She sniffled and looked up slightly.

"Y-you do?" She stammered.

The girl laughed. "Oh yeah." She sat down on the other side of the stall, her back pressed against the door. "I got dumped in Geometry when I was a sophomore."

"Oh no..."

"Oh yes," The girl laughed again. "I wanted to hide in the bathroom forever, but I eventually went back to class. Trust me, crying in here is completely normal. I've seen tons of girls do it."

"Did you talk to them, too?" Emma asked quietly.

The girl thought for a moment. "No, I don't think so."

"...Then why are you talking to me?"

"I had this feeling." The girl said. "That you just--needed someone. More than those girls did. You know?"

She didn't, but she still said, "Uh-huh."

The girl outside shifted slightly. Emma wished she could see her face.

"So...what was it?"

"Huh?"

"What brought you in here to cry?" The girl specified. "If I may ask... You don't have to answer if you don't want to, though."

She was giving Emma an option, Emma realized dizzily. She wasn't forcing her to answer.

Sniffling, Emma said, "I-it's, umm--kinda silly..."

"Nonsense," Said the girl. "Was it a breakup?"

"Umm-- N-no," Emma said shyly. "I don't date..."

"Good for you." The girl chuckled. "We love a strong, independent woman."

Emma felt a flurry of butterflies flap wildly in her stomach and she bit her lip to keep from grinning like a giddy idiot. She was always flattered way too easily.

"School problems?" The girl guessed again.

"Kinda, yeah..."

"I feel you, girlfriend," The girl said. "They expect so much from us, you know? It's like, do this research project in a week, but I'm only giving you one day to work on it in class so you'll have to try not to procrastinate when you do the rest on your own and do this math assignment I barely taught you at all, oh and also, find the cure for cancer!"

Emma couldn't help but giggle. She thought the girl outside the stall may be smiling.

"It sucks, but you'll get through it," The girl said. "It'll all be over soon."

Emma nodded slowly. "Thank you."

The girl got up. "No problem." She said. "I gotta run. My teacher is probably going to tear me a new one for taking so long." She laughed. "I hope you feel better soon!"

"Thank you," Emma whispered again. "Bye..."

And then, her savior was gone. Emma hadn't even known her name. She wondered if the girl would have treated her any differently if she knew who she was…

Crime and Punishment

Monday, 23rd

All the girls in the fourth-period gym class got dressed in silence.

The minute they had walked through the locker room door, conversations died away, giggling dissolved, and horseplay seized. There were no catcalls, no playful wrestling, no pinching or nudging or tickling. They just changed out into their gym clothes without speaking a word, already knowing what was coming.

Some teachers forgot.

Coach Dickinson was not one of them.

It was no surprise when the locker room door slammed open with force after the bell rang, and Coach Dickinson came striding in. Her silver whistle bounced against her chest with every step she took. She looked more like a firebird than usual, and not just because her outfit was a deep shade of goldenrod yellow mixed with fire orange or that her wings were pulsing like flickering flames. She simply looked like she wanted to prick each and every girl in the locker room with something sharp and pointy until she had them squealing for mercy, just like they had Emma Nolan squealing in the pool just outside the locker room. Resentment and disgust twisted her features as she scanned the class with green eyes that were hooded in distaste.

None of her students dared to look at her.

"Let's hurry it up, ladies," Coach Dickinson said after five minutes of just watching the teenagers fumble with their gym uniforms. She had seen Winnie try to stick her head through a wing hole three times and Shelby apparently forget how bra clasps worked, and she decided that it was more pathetic than anything they've ever said Emma had done. "We got work to do."

"Are we in trouble?" Winnie asked meekly, and Coach Dickinson whipped around to face the girl. Winnie jolted back into Shelby, and her fleshy wings were smooth and shaking against Shelby's bare stomach.

"Are you in trouble?" Coach Dickinson echoed. Her crest feathers were beginning to puff up like rising flames. She chuckled. "Are you in trouble? Hm, let me think about that... What do you think?"

"Y-yes?" Winnie stammered.

"YES!" Coach Dickinson flared. "Yes, you are in trouble! Use your damn head, Hansen!"

"I-I'm sorry," Winnie squeaked, shrinking further back against Shelby.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Coach Dickinson said. She gazed around at her class with great disdain. "What you all did was absolutely terrible. Every single one of you is disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourself." She settled her wings and began pacing up and down the rows of lockers, making sure to drill her burning glare into the girls that were trying to hide from her. "Now, I may not be in charge of your detention, but I am still your coach, and you all will be punished until I feel like you're sorry. Now get changed out and get out to the field. You have running to do."

Thank You 

Monday, 23rd

The sun outside felt unnatural and unstoppable and utterly, unpleasantly hot . And Dickinson loved it . She especially loved the moaning, groaning, dripping slowpokes that were her exhausted students.

She was watching them on the field, enjoying the sight of them floundering through the grass, trying to keep their knees from buckling. Avians were better fit for the air, so their stamina when it came to running wasn't the best. Their legs simply couldn't take the strain, and that was exactly why she had chosen such a punishment.

On the fifth bout of Suicides, Dickinson heard the ruffling of uneven feathers from behind. A kind smile formed on her lips.

"Hello, honey," She greeted Emma warmly, extending one of her wings. "Come here. No need to hide."

Emma hesitated, then shuffled over. She had her claws wrung in her shirt and kept glancing around everywhere, expecting there to be something that may humiliate her just waiting around for her.

"How are you feeling?" Dickinson asked as Emma ducked shyly underneath her wing to settle in next to her. She almost pulled away when she felt Emma stiffen, but then she was leaning against her with a small, content noise.

"Umm... F-fine." Emma mumbled awkwardly. "Are you really making them run?"

"I am." Dickinson said proudly. "They deserve it."

Emma nodded very slowly, like she was trying to convince herself that that was true.

"Thank you." She whispered. "I-I never told you on Friday. I-I'm sorry..."

"No, no, honey," Dickinson said. "It's totally fine! You must have been so overwhelmed."

Emma nodded again and Dickinson gently cupped her face. She leaned into that touch, too. The poor thing must not get much affection at home, Dickinson realized sadly.

"I am so sorry that happened to you, Emma." Dickinson said. "You didn't deserve that at all."

"B-but I thought--" She snapped her mouth shut quickly.

"What?" Dickinson tilted her head. "What did you think?"

Emma shook her head, looking a touch uncomfortable. She shuffled her feet.

"N-nothing," She stuttered. "I-I need to g-go do my schoolwork. B-bye, Coach Dickinson."

She began to hurry away, paused, then rushed back over to Dickinson and gave her a quick hug.

"Thank you," She whispered softly before pulling back and scampering off.

Dickinson was left awestruck. She had never expected Emma Nolan to hug her, but she didn't mind in the slightest. A loving smile spread on her lips.

Sweet girl... She thought.

Humid Humiliation 

Monday, 23rd

Shelby quickly realized she had a lot less stamina than she thought she did. She has always been a perfect, well-behaved girl, always slipping out of punishment during the few times she wasn't, so there wasn't ever a need to have tough endurance for running because she never thought she would piss off a gym coach of all people.

But here she was, running Suicides in the field during school, fighting the urge to dry heave every few seconds.

The sun seemed to be unnaturally, blisteringly hot that late morning, like it, too, was punishing her and her classmates for what they had done on Friday. Shelby didn’t think she'd ever been so hot before. Her skin felt like it was baking, her hair was tassels of burnet fire, and her back was a plateau of roaring flames. Gleaming yellow sunlight made her eyes prickly and sore, and if she squinted through the haze of exhaustion, she swore she thought she could see a big black buzzard circling overhead that seemed to be just waiting for one of them to drop dead.

"Come on, ladies!" Coach Dickinson shouted from the side of the field, looking absolutely delightful. "Lift those legs up! Faster! Faster!"

"She--she can't do this to us," Kaylee wheezed as she careened up next to Shelby. She was absolutely dripping with sweat and red in the face, but Shelby couldn't tell if that was from the sun, the exertion of the Suicides, or the fury from both. "This is torture!"

"Just--let it go, Kaylee. We're almost done. I'm sure class will be over soon." Shelby said through her teeth. It took a great effort to speak; she could feel bile curling in the back of her throat like bubbling acid.

"And then tomorrow? And God knows how long?" Kaylee spat. "All because of Emma Nolan?"

"Kaylee ." Shelby hissed. She picked up her pace to get away from her cousin, but when she turned to run back to the starting line, her foot slipped in the slick turf of the football field and she was sent sprawling on her stomach. The impact jarred her heavily and she dry heaved painfully until her lunch finally came rushing out of her mouth. A few girls winced, but mostly everyone kept running--not that she blamed them. Kaylee, however, darted over to her side, and she wasn't sure if she was happy about that or not.

"Are you okay?" Kaylee asked. Her concerned Older Sister voice was slipping into her words and Shelby couldn't help but crack a tiny smile at that. This was the side of Kaylee she liked, not the evil, cruel one who liked to pick on kids three years younger than her.

"Y-yeah--" Shelby answered, spitting out the last of the bile in her mouth. "I'm fine."

"Gonzalez," Coach Dickinson called, walking over, twirling her whistle on her finger. "Are you alright?"

"Like you care..." Kaylee muttered. Coach Dickinson gave her a dangerous glare, and Shelby set a hand on her knee to not only calm her best friend but to also boost herself back up.

"Yes ma'am," Shelby said. "I'm okay."

"Good." Coach Dickinson rumbled. "I'm glad." She shot Shelby another look for a brief moment. "Get back to it. You're almost done."

Shelby nodded and then took off again, shortly followed by Kaylee, who was muttering something about this being "child abuse".

Ten minutes of running in the searing humidity passed and Coach Dickinson's whistle finally pierced the field. A collective sigh of relief swept through the class as girls skidded to a halt and instantly doubled over or completely collapsed to the floor in moaning, groaning heaps of soreness. A few scrambled for their water bottles and began drinking like it was the end of the world. Coach Dickinson walked over to them, amusement painted brightly on her face.

"Don't drink too fast," Their coach said to the girls guzzling down water, "or you may throw up."

"My legs are gonna fall off," Winnie said in a woebegone voice. She was flopped over on her back, wings stretched out, spilling her red hair all across the green grass like blood.

"Now you know how it feels to be Emma Nolan, don't you?" Coach Dickinson said, looking down her nose at the girl.

"I don't think I've ever seen her have to run before," Jules pointed out grumpily. "Even though she's the worst at literally everything we do in class..."

Coach Dickinson glowered down at Jules for a moment, then began marching up and down the cluster of girls. They all watched her tensely, waiting for her to exact an even harsher punishment than Suicides.

"Do any of you have anything at all to say about yourselves yet?" Coach Dickinson said. "Anything?"

The girls exchanged looks with each other. Shelby shuffled up, wobbling on her weak knees. Coach Dickinson raised an eyebrow at her.

"Gonzalez?" The coach said. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry," Shelby said. "For what I did on Friday. I'm sorry."

Coach Dickinson hummed and nodded. "Good." She turned to the rest. "Anyone else?"

After a moment, Winnie heaved herself up and stepped forward. "Umm-- I'm sorry, too."

Begrudgingly, other girls began to step in and apologize, but they were half-hearted and not as real as Shelby's. Coach Dickinson didn't seem convinced by the apologies, and they all knew their punishment would not be ending yet.

"Good. Now, go get changed out." Coach Dickinson said. "Oh, and the showers are out of order! So there's no way to clean yourselves up!" She grinned brightly at the uproar of groans that followed.

Ad Hominem 

Monday, 23rd

Miss Allen looked absolutely delighted when Shelby and the rest of the fourth period gym class walked into her classroom for after school detention. Her window was open, letting pale yellow sunlight drift inside and let loose the smoke she must have been breathing out in anger. She was sharpening her deadly dragon claws on an actual whetstone, and Shelby began to wonder if their punishment was going to be getting mauled for an hour and thirty minutes. Miss Allen certainly looked like she wanted to.

"Hello, Ladies," Miss Allen said with an overly-friendly voice. However, Shelby could see flames of hate flickering in her eyes as she looked at all of them. "Welcome to detention!"

"What are you gonna make us do?" Jules said. "Recite the Declaration of Independence?"

"I'm a U.S. Government and World History teacher, Jules," Miss Allen said. "But judging that I only passed you in my class last year out of pity, I'm not surprised to hear you say that."

Snickers whisked through the room as Jules's face turned dark red.

"But I'm glad you asked!" Miss Allen went on. "Ladies, this week you will be relieving the janitors, and, no, Kaylee, I don't mean blowing them in the theater bathroom during school hours."

It was Kaylee's turn to blush furiously, and Shelby barely managed to bite back a laugh.

"You-you can't say that!!" Kaylee sputtered.

"And you can't give handjobs to your desk neighbor during class to make him do a project for you, but I guess that hasn't stopped you." Miss Allen said silkily.

Kaylee was impossibly red. Smoke billowed out of her nostrils and wreathed around her horns. Miss Allen, on the other hand, looked absolutely blissful.

"So...we have to clean?" Winnie asked quietly.

"Indeed," Miss Allen nodded. "Unless you'd like me to send you back to Coach Dickinson?"

They all shook their hands frantically. Miss Allen smiled.

"Wonderful. Now, let's get to work!"

Seven brooms, eight mops, four buckets of soapy water, three bottles of cleaning spray, and twenty-one pairs of gloves later, Shelby was on her knees, rubbing down the legs of a desk with a rag. She had her wings folded tightly against her back, keeping the curves away from the ground, which was turned into a sea of suds from Winnie's careless mopping. Her silk glands ached from the pressure she was putting on them as she cleaned.

"Keep scrubbing, Gonzalez," Miss Allen said from above her. "I want you to be able to see your reflection."

"Yes, ma'am," Shelby huffed tiredly, scrubbing harder.

"If I may, ma'am," Linda dared to speak up. She turned away from the window she was spraying and wiping down to look at the teacher. "I don't see what the point of cleaning is if it's just going to all get dirty tomorrow."

"Ah, so you do have a brain!" Miss Allen said. "You'll have even more to do tomorrow! Isn't that exciting?"

Linda ruffled her tail feathers and turned back to the window, grumbling to herself.

"This isn't fair!" Kaylee groaned loudly. She whipped around from the doorknob she had been shining for the past thirty minutes since Miss Allen kept saying it wasn't good enough.

"Oh?" Miss Allen raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you REALLY want to do this right now, Klein? Because I think I have you cornered. You tried to drown a girl. You certainly deserve this and so much more."

"It was just a joke," Kaylee half-muttered.

"A joke? Really?" Miss Allen scoffed. "You know, you should be in jail right now. Jules certainly should. But the school board doesn't think a hybrid is worth any lawsuits, so both of you--ALL OF YOU--got off easy. But I'm not going to forget what you did. Not ever. So you're going to pay for what you've done whether you like it or not because what you did was absolutely sick."

"And here I thought you were always sucking Hawkins off," Kaylee said, making Winnie gasp and Shelby look up sharply in shock.

But instead of being enraged, Miss Allen just rolled her eyes. "I'm the dominant one, Kaylee. Try to keep up."

Kaylee growled. "Well, still! It's her fault for pissing plasma everywhere when we were trying to swim! She should have controlled her bladder better!"

"Actually, plasma comes from the kidneys," Winnie said. "And I don't think it's her fault that she didn't know. Sometimes when you drink too much blood, the plasma will come out like period blood, so you can't control it or hold it in like when you pee. I remember the first time I passed some plasma and it was SO WEIRD! I mean, I thought I had a second period or something, but really it was--”

"Winnie. Shut up." Kaylee snarled.

Winnie's ears folded back and she looked at the ground, snapping her mouth shut so tightly she bit her tongue with her fangs. She shuffled her feet in the pool of sudsy water around her, suddenly looking very embarrassed and awkward. Shelby gave her a pitiful look, then glared at her best friend.

"Don't be mean, Kaylee." She said.

Kaylee glanced at her and, surprisingly, forgot about Winnie speaking up against her.

"WELL STILL!" Kaylee raised her voice, clawing for a reason to make herself seem like she was in the right. It was thoroughly amusing Miss Allen by the grin twitching on her lips. "It's her fault. Not ours. And she should learn to take a joke. We didn't hurt her. She was fine in the long run, wasn't she?"

Miss Allen chuckled, sliding her talons together and resting them upon her stomach. "Oh. Oh, I see." She nodded.

Then, all of a sudden, as fast as a bullwhip, Miss Allen seized Kaylee by one of the horns and slammed her up against the wall.

Yelps of fright pierced through the room. Two girls jumped backward in fear. One girl who had been walking inside to ask a question promptly turned around and walked back out. Winnie slipped in the water around her when she flinched and would have fallen if it weren't Shelby shooting out a strand of silk and catching her around the waist, hoisting her upwards.

"You--you can't do that!" Kaylee yelped, her eyes bulging in shock. “You can’t hit us!”

"It was just a joke," Miss Allen said with a wicked, toothy smile. Her golden and copper wings were arched dangerously over her head, the barbs in the bend extended outwards and poised mere inches away from Kaylee's face. Nobody doubted that she wouldn't hesitate to put them in Kaylee's skull, regardless of the lawsuits that would follow. "You aren't hurt. You'll be fine in the long run, won't you?"

Kaylee growled lowly and pushed against Miss Allen to get away, but Miss Allen smashed her back into the wall, causing the entire thing to rattle from the impact. Miss Allen flared her ruff and frills in Kaylee's face, drawing her wing barbs in closer.

"Do not push against me, Kaylee. We both know I could slit your throat open like a ziplock bag in less than a second, and don't think I won't do it." Miss Allen warned. "I am much stronger than you, so I advise you to listen to me closely and you may keep the face you think is so pretty, when, really, you're just average."

Kaylee said nothing, pleasing Miss Allen.

"You will not hurt Emma Nolan ever again." Miss Allen said. "Now, I'm not your mother, I can't tell you what to do, but if you do decide to disobey me, well," She chuckled, then leaned in closer to whisper, hissing smoke into Kaylee's ear, "Let's just say you won't be flying ever again. And after I rip your wings off, I will stuff them and make them a part of my costume for Mardi Gras, flaunting them because you will never be able to." Her sharp teeth were so close they nearly scraped off skin. " Do you understand me? "

Kaylee nodded almost instantly, not even bothering to act stubborn or fight back.

"Good." Miss Allen released Kaylee and stepped back, breathing wisps of bright flame. Smoke was rising from her ears and nostrils, curling around her horns and filling the room with an ashy, acrid smell. Her claws kept twitching like she still wanted to slash Kaylee's throat out and her wing barbs remained extended. "Now. Go clean Mr. Putnam's room. Bring the mop with you. I want it looking spotless."

Kaylee nodded again, no longer making eye contact. Shelby could see that her talons had pierced through her gloves from clenching her fists so tightly. After swiping a mop and bucket, she scurried out with her head ducked low.

Miss Allen breathed out a plume and ring of crackling embers, losing the tension locked in her wings. She looked at her claws, and Shelby wondered if she were imagining them soaked in a student's blood. She shook them out and turned her gaze to the petrified girls in the class with her. At her stare, they all leaped in fright and frantically got back to cleaning. Miss Allen chuckled.

"Good." She rumbled.

The Substitute 

Tuesday, 24th

First period was a clatter of noise as kids bustled into the classroom and sharpened pencils and hopped up onto the tables to talk to their friends from higher ground. Shelby was about to enter, surrounded by the even louder sound of high school in the poster-covered halls when someone had hopped into her path.

"Can I ask you a few questions for the school paper? Can I? Can I?"

She looked down--way down--to see a weedy little freshman boy--he had to be at least fourteen if he was in high school, but he only looked about eleven--with a notebook, fluttering fairy-wren wings, and a painfully sincere expression on his freckled face.

"I'm surveying the quality of food at homecoming! Can I ask you a few questions? Have you been to homecoming? Like, last year? I haven't been, so I was asking some older students."

This kid's got balls, that was for sure. But shouldn't Shelby push him to the side? Isn't that what she was supposed to do to frosh?

But then her mind flickered back to Emma Nolan, and she couldn't bring herself to ignore this little guy. She wanted to turn over a new leaf, be nicer, and this would definitely be some start to that.

"Sure!" She said, giving him her full attention.

The boy's face lit up with equal parts happy and surprised. Apparently, the poor kid wasn't used to people treating him with so much courtesy. Shelby was happy to have gone against his expectations in this case. It made her feel like she wasn't that bad of a person, after all.

He reeled off questions with cheerful enthusiasm, and Shelby did her best to answer. As soon as he was done, he thanked her profusely and then scampered off down the hallway in a flurry of blue feathers. Shelby shook her head in amusement and then stepped into class.

"Hello, children!" She called to the Fantasy table, where all her friends sat.

"Morning, Shelbs!"

"Good morning, Shelby!"

"Hey, Shelbl!"

"Morning, babe!"

Shelby sat down next to Kevin as usual and immediately leaned into his side. Kevin laughed and nuzzled his nose into her frizzy hair.

"You look tired," Linda observed.

"I am," Shelby sighed. "How are you not? I'm STILL sore from gym and detention yesterday."

"Ugh, don't remind me," Jules groaned, dramatically flopping over the surface of the table. "I could barely LAY DOWN last night; my legs hurt THAT BAD!"

"And we have to go back for the rest of the week..." Winnie said woefully.

"Oh, hey, Emma!" Kaylee said suddenly.

Shelby turned her head to see Emma, clad in a strange clash of flannel and overalls, shuffling inside with her ears pinned down. She had at least ten books in her arms, which she held protectively against her chest like an ice dragon guarding its hoard of gold or secret knowledge. Her hair was done in a messy braid, a style Shelby doesn't think she's ever seen her with.

"Wanna come be useful and massage my feet? They hurt like hell after you got us punished for your own stupidity."

Emma didn't stop, only hunching her wings around her neck and picking up the pace slightly. Kaylee sneered.

"Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind!" She rolled her eyes and then sprung into a new conversation with Jules and Linda.

Shelby watched as Emma sat down at her empty table and opened up one of her books. Her nervous expression lightened slightly when she was reading, so Shelby waited a moment and then gave apologizing another shot.

"I'll be right back," Shelby murmured to Kevin. She slid out from under her boyfriend's wing and walked over to Emma's table. Kaylee, Jules, Linda, and Winnie were too deep in conversation to notice her, luckily, but Kevin watched her curiously as she tapped the top of the table to let Emma know she was there. It was enough to make the poor kid jump and look up instantly, slamming her book shut.

"Hey, Emma," Shelby greeted warmly. "How are you?"

Emma blinked at her for several seconds before whispering, "Okay..."

But she didn't look 'okay' up close. Her skin was a worrying shade of milky yellow and her eyes were dull, like a dead fish's, with dark purple bags underneath them. She kept breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, and it might have been funny if it wasn't for the fact that Emma didn't normally breathe like that. Beads of sweat-soaked the crown of her head, despite it being rather cool inside the classroom.

Shelby waited for her to ask how she was, but she didn't, so she started again, "Nice weather, huh?" She internally cringed at how terribly awkward that was, but she didn't know what else to say.

Emma peered out the tinted glass windows, squinting like she couldn't see, and then said, "It's cloudy."

"Yeah," Shelby nodded. "Thank god. That'll make gym class a lot less painful."

Emma shrunk in on herself, guilt twisted on her expression. "Sorry," She mumbled. "A-about that..."

Shelby frowned. "No need to apologize, Emma. We all deserve it for what we did."

Emma shifted uncomfortably but didn't say anything else. Shelby looked down at one of the books stacked on her desk, which had a girl with a bonnet on her head on its cover. She tentatively picked it up.

"The Crucible, " She read aloud. A moment later, the book is ripped from her hands, and in the briefest moment where her skin brushed against Emma's, she felt a sudden, weird shifting in the world, like something was tugging apart her muscles from inside her. She froze, staring into the girl's innocent blue eyes.

What was that?

Emma hunched in her shoulders, ducked her head like a harmless turtle, and looked away, hugging the book protectively against her chest. Shelby realized she was starting to tuck further into her shell and tried to stop her before she closed herself off entirely, sputtering out, "No, no, no, no-- Wait, hang on."

She bent over the desk, kneeling to hopefully catch Emma's lowered gaze. The girl looked frightened, but there were hints of anger and annoyance in her eyes.

"That's a good one," Shelby said. "I read it last year for English. So you'll be way ahead of everyone else when you're a junior!"

Emma nodded, glancing shyly up at her. Her ears kept swiveling forward and then back and then forward again, like she was trying to detect a trick with her Vesper echolocation (if she even inherited that).

"What else do you like to read?" Shelby asked. She glanced at the stack of books on the table. "Harry Potter? Hunger Games? Percy Jackson?"

"No," Emma shook her head. "Not really."

"Well, if you ever need book recommendations," Shelby said, "I read a lot. So I know a few." She winked at Emma, and, for the briefest of moments, Emma cracked a tiny ghost of a smile.

But then it went away in an instant, snuffed out like a candle in a winter whirlwind because caution and worry were shoving their way into Emma's brain. She looked Shelby up and down again, then leaned back. She's retreated into her shell, suddenly frightened.

"Wh-why are you doing this?" She asked softly, hugging her wings close around her like she thought they might protect her from cruel words or even physical blows. "Wh-why are y-you..." She trailed off, looking away.

"Oh, Emma," Shelby murmured. "I want to be your friend."

Emma's eyes widened and her ears folded back against her head. She said nothing, just stared at Shelby until the bell rang, and Shelby swore she saw relief flash on Emma's face. Shelby sighed and stood up.

"Bye, Emma," Shelby said before returning to her table.

"Good morning, class," A froggy voice said. An older Hydra with big, round glasses and coils of hearing aids around her ears entered the room- a substitute. So that's why a name was written on the whiteboard. "I am Mrs. Henderson. I will be substituting for Mr. Glickman today. Now, let's get to roll call..."

Out of the corner of her eye, Shelby saw Emma duck her head and press the heels of her palms to her eyes, like she was trying to keep something trapped inside her skull. She was inhaling and exhaling through just her mouth now, and Shelby wondered if she was about to vomit. She certainly looked ill.

"Emma Nolan," Mrs. Henderson intoned.

A student at the Sci-Fi table called out, "She's not here."

Shelby heard Emma sigh softly and looked up. "Yes, I am."

The substitute didn't raise her head from the roster, so Emma swallowed and spoke again, "Mrs. Henderson. I'm here."

Mrs. Henderson peered over her glasses, frowning. "Why did you say she wasn't?" She asked the boy who had said something.

He shrugged. "She never speaks, so it wouldn't make a difference if she were here or not."

Mrs. Henderson glanced at Emma, then sniffed and moved on as kids giggled. Emma lowered her head and dug her nose back into her book. Shelby watched her curiously, wondering what was going on with this girl.

HELP

it felt as if someone was taking a knife and stabbing it into her ears over and over and over again until brain matter was spilling out.

exhaustion tugged at her body as she wrote

read read just read it'll get better

It won't.

who

in her journal. her vision blurs momentarily, and even when it clears, there's no difference. everything still looks the same--and that's one of the causes of the thumping in her chest. that, among many different things.

it's just--

everything hurt . her head, her stomach, her arms and legs and neck. Mama doesn't understand why she looked so poorly that morning. and she especially didn't understand why she was so thirsty when she practically begged for a cup she couldn't drink and filled it up with water that she guzzled down until she felt she was about to vomit.

"she looks...sick." muttered Linda from the Fantasy table. she's talking about her, she knows she is.

was she sick? she felt sick, but at the same time, something told her this wasn't some ordinary stomach bug.

who are you

You.

she heard Jules ask her friends, only half-joking, if she was "some sort of anorexic or something", and she pretended it didn't sting.

stupid stupid stupid wish i could rip your stupid head off

Then do it.

something within her twitched.

a tug on her muscles. a pull on her brain. a heave in her tendons.

her senses start to come together a little more--or at least she thinks they are. she's starting to shake, though, and she doesn't know why but it's awful, so awful. her teeth clatter and her eyes feel hot and her head is going to explode.

help me help me help me

spinning spinning spinning, everything was spinning out of control.

it burns oh god it burns

she should be used to it by now, she should be immune to this pain. but it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so badly.

it's inside her, every muscle, every bone, every fiber of her being, this pain so horrible, constant, just another part of her. but today it's worse. it's so much worse. whatever it is, she hates it.

it shouldn't be like this. it burns so much hotter, it claws at her without mercy. it's not right. this isn't how things are supposed to be. she's not supposed to feel this way, like everything around her is fire and everything inside her burns, like there's no safety, no happiness, no love, only misery and agony.

it's school, just school, and pain is what brings clarity. but that's a lie Mama tells her, it's a lie she tells herself, because that's not how you're supposed to live. that's not how you're supposed to gain strength. no matter how many times Mama says it is, there's others who are strong and don't go through this. she's seen it, she's felt it. so why? why her? why does it have to be this way?

HELP ME

it burns yet she also feels so cold, so left alone, so bruised and battered, despite being surrounded by people, but they don't care. no one cares. while the fires around her burn, while her insides burn just as badly as the outside, nobody turns to help her.

please

it's like her own fire dies a little each time. her heart freezes as her body burns, her spirit dying as her nerves come alive with pain, so much pain.

she can't take it anymore, she can't handle all this pain, all this suffering, all this neglect and abuse and hate. she wants to do something about it. for once she wants it all to just--end.

something do something anything

cobwebs of cracks splinter across the surface of the Horror table. her eyes sting and roll back in her skull. her head aches, and is that drool dripping from her mouth...?

her throat feels scratchy, like something was trying to crawl its way out of her esophagus, so she lets it out.

it's too hot window open please it's so hot let me be free

The Substitute 

Tuesday, 24th

Kaylee heard it first--

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER?!"

\--and then everyone else followed. They all turned to Emma, who was seizing violently in her chair and keening a weird kind of distress call at the ceiling. It was like a bird shriek, bat screech, and dragon cry all at once.

"What is she doing?!" Winnie yelped.

Kids turned to Mrs. Henderson, only to see that the substitute was reading peacefully at Mr. Glickman's desk. She must have had her hearing aids turned off--or maybe she was just ignoring the scene entirely, and Shelby couldn't tell what was more of a power move.

Kids out in the hallway started to peek inside curiously and ogled Emma as she shuddered and trembled awfully, still screeching. It was horrible to just sit there and watch her frenzy like this, so Shelby suddenly leaped up and wrapped Emma in her wings, forcing the shrieking girl to fold and crumble until she was small, buried and muffled by her chest.

The moment she touched her, Shelby got that awful twisty, ill feeling inside of her, but this time much worse. It was almost like hugging a bundle of static electricity that was slowly disintegrating her insides the longer she held on.

Whatever it was, it wasn't natural .

"Are you supposed to touch someone who's having a seizure?" Linda asked.

"Is that what this is?" Shelby asked back.

Linda shrugged helplessly. "I don't know! Usually people don't scream like that when they seize!"

Emma made a muffled noise against Shelby's collarbone, and Shelby gently stroked her hair to try and calm her.

"I know, I know, sweetie," She whispered, even though she didn't know. She had no idea what was going on or how to stop it. But she didn't let go, even when it began to feel like a hand was reaching into her stomach and pulling all her organs out one by one.

"It's okay, Emma, it's okay," She murmured.

"No," Emma gurgled, "It has awakened."

And then, all the warmth in Emma's body seemed to flare into a burning heat beneath Shelby's clawtips, her pulse beat heavily under her flesh, and one of the windows exploded into millions of tiny gold pieces.

Meeting Crasher

Tuesday, 24th

Hawkins sighed, rubbing his forehead as the meeting over detention and gym punishment ended, and Jules Wyatt's father stormed out of his office. Dickinson and Allen stood against the wall, biting their lips to smother smiles, and he turned to them.

"Men." He said.

The two women burst into laughter.

Which was quickly cut off by a woman bursting into the office with a girl held tightly by the arm.

It was Emma Nolan, who looked shaken up and ill.

A strange sensation suddenly filled the room, like charged electricity.

"Mrs. Henderson?" Hawkins said, straightening up. He easily recognized the shrewd older woman from her big spectacles and hearing aids. "What's going?"

"Hey!" Dickinson barked at the same time. "Don't hold her like that!"

She rushed over and gently pulled Emma away from the substitute's tight grip. Hawkins noticed the way she strangely shuddered when she touched Emma, as if she had been shocked, but didn't let go and guided her over to the wall where Allens opened one wing protectively. They both looked like mother hens and dragoness’.

Hawkins couldn't tell if the young girl looked better or worse than she did when she was first in his office on Friday.

"This troublemaker broke one of the windows in class." Mrs. Henderson hissed in her shrill voice.

Hawkins, Allen, and Dickinson exchanged matching confused glances, then looked down at Emma, who appeared profoundly uncomfortable. She held several books in her stick-thin arms, which she was also obviously trying to hide behind. Her eyes were blown out of focus, like she was doped up on too much Novocaine, and her wings were stiff against her back.

She didn't look like the type to break a window at all.

"Emma?" Hawkins said slowly. "Are you sure?"

Mrs. Henderson appeared quite ruffled at not being believed. "Yes!" She snapped. "The window is BROKEN! And everyone was blaming this one!"

"Hm." Dickinson said skeptically. She knelt in front of Emma, gently cupping her cheeks so they'll make eye contact. Hawkins noted how Emma didn't flinch at all when Dickinson touched her and even seemed to lean into her hands. "Emma, baby girl, did you break a window?"

"No." Emma said quietly, but firmly.

"Alright," Dickinson nodded. She stood back up. "I believe her."

"Me too," Allen said.

"What?" Mrs. Henderson exclaimed.

"I have a pretty good lie detector," Dickinson said. "That's why he," She jerked her head back at Hawkins, "can't beat me at poker."

"It's true." Hawkins vouched for her. "I'll send a custodian down right away, Mrs. Henderson. Was anyone hurt?"

"Not that I saw," Mrs. Henderson said.

"Well, that's good, at least." Hawkins said. "You can get back to class now."

Mrs. Henderson narrowed her eyes at Emma, then huffed and left the room. Hawkins blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair. Dickinson and Allen looked down at Emma with a worried expression.

"Emma, sweetheart," Dickinson said gently. "Are you alright?"

Emma hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. "Can I go home?" She asked softly.

"Home?" Hawkins echoed in confusion.

Emma nodded. She raised her head slightly to meet his gaze, and he thought he could see something swimming in her pale blue eyes.

"Please?"

Usually, Hawkins would say no unless something was really wrong, but something told him not to deny the request--that this girl needed to go home and he should not get in her way.

"Alright," He said, pulling out a dismissal slip. She looked as deathly pale as she did on Friday. "Can you walk or fly or would you like a cab? We can also call your mother."

"No." Emma said quickly, looking nervous. "Y-you don't--you don't need to call her. I can walk."

"Okay," Hawkins nodded. He handed her the dismissal slip, and she mumbled a tiny, "thank you."

"I do hope you feel better, Emma." Hawkins told her.

"Me too," Allen said, and Dickinson nodded at her side. She gently touched Emma's shoulder. "If you ever need anything, we're here."

Emma nodded, whispered her thanks again, then walked out.

It wasn't even ten o'clock yet.

"I'm worried about her," Dickinson said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. Concern glowed in her green eyes. "There's something...not quite right about her. I could feel it when I touched her." She shook her head. "That little girl has been through horrible things.”

The Library

Tuesday, 24th

Emma wasn't sure if she was allowed to go to the library before leaving school, but nobody stopped her.

Nobody was ever mean to her in the library. They were always too busy to pick on her, which was one reason she liked it so much. People didn't care that she was there, instead hunched over tables with research spread out over the surface, clicking furiously on computers, scribbling in notepads in the windowsill nooks, and reading, reading, reading.

A kind of peace settled over her as she stepped inside, breathing in the crisp smell of books. She felt like she belonged here, with all the oddities of literature, even if she didn't belong anywhere else. In here, there were answers and information and thousands of stories waiting for her to read...right behind Mama's back.

Mama didn't like her reading a lot of things, especially young adult novels. But what Mama didn't know was that she was already ankle-deep in a franchise about wild cats who were in clans and several other standalone books. When she was at school, Mama's book of voodoo was not her Sacred Book.

Shelves radiated out from every direction like a burst of sun, and more aisles with more books filled the overhead balcony ring. Yes, her school technically had a two-story library. A DOUBLE-DECKER library! You had to take a narrow wooden staircase to get up to the top ledge, which wrapped around the upper perimeter of the room and had a few private rooms to study or read in. The guard rail was laced in white fairy lights, causing the ceiling to glow beautifully.

Another thing Emma loved was the statue at the front, poised below the two entrance ramps and a short staircase. It was of a long, serpent-like dragon made of white marble, coiled up on a mound of books with its snout dug in a thick, bulky novel. Its name was Haze, and it looked as though it might glance up at any moment, see Emma, and say, "Do you want to try this one? You won't believe how it ends!"

Emma gently brushed one of the claws as she passed by. There weren't many kids in the library, rather in class, but there were a few seniors in there for a free period. None of them even glanced up at Emma.

Emma sat down at a computer further away from the other kids and spent a good few minutes simply trying to open up a browser. She rarely messed around with technology, since there wasn't much in her house. She nearly threw the mouse off the table while trying to swipe the cursor around to the Google icon, and her typing wasn't any better. But she eventually managed to open up a search bar and type in the one thing that would explain the things she's been feeling: Magi.

ma·gus

/ˈmāɡəs/

noun

plural noun: magi

*  a sorcerer

Emma blinked, tilting her head at the definition as if she thought the words might start explaining their meaning to her even further if she stared hard enough.

She'd heard people talk about the rare, ancient Magi magic. How only a few avians were born with the ability of enchantment.

Was that what she'd been feeling? Or was she thinking too much into it all, hoping she may be special and different and important?

She continued reading up on Magi magic specifically.

Magi is an ancient alleged ability allowing an avian to influence a physical system by interaction or thought. By a mere command, they can make an object, living thing, or even an element like fire and water do whatever they ask.

Emma's eyes go wide with interest. She looked down at her hands but didn't see anything special about them. They just looked like normal hands, just bonier and scarred than usual. Suddenly self-conscious, she rubbed the old burn over her knuckles while clicking on a video about Magi.

And it was like watching a dream come true. Emma's eyes widened even further as she watched as a Hydra held out his hand, saying, "Paper, I command you to fold into an origami swan!", and the paper does just that. He must have the same powers as her! Oh, how she wished she could reach into the screen and pull this dragon out and ask him all the questions now running through her mind. Like, how are you doing that? And when did you know you could do it? And are there others like us? And will you teach me how to do that, too?

Emma looked around and found a discarded pencil sitting on a nearby table. She stared at it intently.

"Pencil, if you can hear me," She whispered, "can you please float in the air?"

The pencil didn't move.

Emma's ears drooped. So much for being special.

Magi: Facts About Mind Over Matter

*  To put it simply, Magi is a form of ancient magic that allows an avian to enchant any object, living thing, or element (water, air, fire, earth) to do whatever they want through either thought or spoken words. For example: They could command a rock to fly around in a circle and then land in the exact same position it was in before.

*  Magi has been around since the dawn of time, but the bloodline of Magi avians started dying out around the 1500s when they were killed for being witches. Witchcraft has been strongly associated with Magi ever since. Now, Magi is a randomly inherited trait, but can occasionally be passed down from family members with magic in their bloodline.

*  Magi is not as easy as it may look. It's a power that needs to be trained and used wisely, as there is a price to pay if it is used enough.

*  The punishment for Magi abuse varies from avian to avian. They could turn to stone, become a feral monster, die instantly, etc.

*  Magi is a kind of magic that feeds off of the body and mind. Using the magic burns a lot of energy, usually leaving the user lighter and slightly weaker afterward.

*  Magi can cause other effects on the body like nose bleeds, fainting, migraines, seizures, fever, low blood pressure, and anxiety attack-like fits. This is why practice is very important for Magi avians.

*  Magi won't always work. One thing it works on is the emotional state of the user. So if they're anxious and frightened and their heart rate is up, Magi is more likely to malfunction and reverse the spell on their own body. But if they're calm and their heartbeat is steady, then Magi will work in their favor. Someone who is stressed or scared or angry can cast Magi spells with ease as long as they control their heart rate.

*  Magi spells are almost completely limitless. The things they cannot do are: bring back the dead, heal wounds, cure a sickness or mental disorder.

A Refreshing Walk

Tuesday, 24th

Humid autumn air wrapped around Emma as she walked, and her skin tingled. Not with the weather, but the sensation inside of her. It put pressure on her lungs, her heart, her brain, her very soul until it felt like her entire body was about to burst apart into tiny little chunks.

She breathed in deeply, and the oxygen sliced her throat like a hot knife.

Hunger gnawed at her. She needed to eat, and she had some money with her in her bag, so she trudged along the loud, bustling road to a plaza in the city. Sometimes people shouted at her there, but they never actually followed her, so she felt like it was okay to go for lunch.

Shops line the square-shaped enclosure, with a large patch of well-kept green grass in the middle (which was rare for a city like New Orleans). Several small children too young to be in school were playing in the turf while their parents watched on when she turned into the pavilion. One mother saw her coming and pulled her twin boys against her protectively, glaring at Emma as if she were the grim reaper hunting for its next victims. Emma stared back at her with a wounded expression, but the mother did not break her gaze. Emma looked away and kept walking down the sidewalk. On the way, she passed a hairdresser, an establishment called "Cut and Color". On their sign, a little rainbow with the wrong colors comes arcing out of the word "Color".

She automatically touched her head as if she were checking if her hair was still there. Last time she went there, they cut it far too short. The time before that, the woman was talking to her friend, and she made a thin patch at the back. The time before that, she explained what she wanted in a nervous stutter and they laughed at her. Mama cut her hair, now.

hate them i want to stab scissors in her eyes

The deli shop she entered for lunch was busy. There were two guys working: a fat hoary bat Vesper and a cicada Cimex with a mustache. She had to wait in the queue for nearly ten minutes, staring at the clumpy chocolate chip cookies that have been in the oven for too long and listening to the slow-moving staff making racist jokes.

awful people awful i want to stick their awful heads into the fryer

Then command it.

There was that feeling again. Like something was tugging on her muscles or whispering in her ears. She looked down at her hands, but they looked exactly the same as they always did. Then, she twisted around and grabbed one of her books on Magi she had stuffed into her bag. She opened it up and began to read as she waited.

Just as she was about to get served, a skinny Avem woman with a bright, fake tan and too much makeup breezed inside. She wore a padded, sleeveless jacket with furry armholes that really did not compliment her bright green parrot wings. The fat bat behind the counter stood up straight. 

"Hello, Al," She purred.

"H-hello, Angela," He stammered. "What can I get you?"

Emma looked up sharply from her book. This woman was curvy and weirdly skinny. Not like her own form of skinny, not like she was starved, too, but, rather, she was thin for the sake of being thin. She must have thought it looked nice, but Emma just thought it made her look like a really spiffy skeleton in those clothes.

"Um," Emma spoke up meekly, wincing at the way her voice wobbled and shook. She shyly tugged at the woman's coat. "E-excuse me?"

The woman, Angela, apparently, turned her head and squinted down at Emma. "What?" She spat.

"Leave her alone, Emma." The worker with the mustache said, not looking over.

"Emma?" Angela echoed, her eyes wide. "Emma Nolan ?"

"There's a queue," Emma said, not approving or denying the question.

"You're actually a lot cuter up close," Angela mused, also ignoring what Emma was saying. "I thought you were gangly like your mother."

Emma clenched her claws. "Don't talk about my Mama like that, please." She said, barely containing a growl.

"Aww, your Mama?" Angela crooned. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize she was that important to you."

stupid whore stupid whore i should push you off the tallest building ha ha ha ha then you'd crack your ugly slut head and die

"There's a queue." Emma said through her teeth. She hated it when adults treated her like this. She rather them pretend like she didn't exist. "Please move. I was next."

A retort formed on Angela's lips, but it died as Emma stared her down with her big pale eyes.

"Get a meatball sub ready for me, Al," She said to the fat bat behind the counter. As she strutted by to the back of the queue, she hissed under her breath, "Little bitch."

Emma pretended she didn't hear her, even though it was clear as day on her face that she did.

Finally, she reached the head of the queue and ordered one turkey sandwich. Al shoveled out some chips that looked distinctly undercooked, but Emma didn't say anything and handed him her money. Al took a lot longer than usual to check it, like he was making sure she wasn't using any fake currency, but she eventually got a wrapped turkey sandwich in a thin bag. On the side is written: HAPPY TO SERVE YOU--COME AGAIN!

Emma ducked out of the shop and found a place to sit near the grass. The squeals and giggles of children were distracting, but she managed to tune them out once she started reading in another of her books.

She was about halfway through her lunch and on an exciting paragraph on the history of a famous Magi avian named Bella when a voice called out.

"For a witch, she looks pretty fuckable..."

Emma's back straightened so quickly that it sent off a miniature twenty-one-gun salute of pops and cracks down her spine and a pang of agony through her temples as her head whipped upright fully. From the corner of her eye, she could see a group of college kids sitting outside the deli shop from which the voice had originated. One of them, a peregrine falcon Avem, smirked when he saw her look up.

"That got her attention!" He chortled and slapped the arm of a young man sitting next to him. "I guess you were right, Garrett! She does want to fuck you!"

"What'd I tell you?" The one who had made the first comment, Garrett, said.

On occasion, there were people whose voices were the exact opposite of what you'd expect to be coming out of their bodies. Emma had heard deep death-rattles coming from the scrawniest, weediest-looking individuals and voices like songbirds come out of people big enough that they could crush her head with one hand.

Such was not the case with this man. Garrett looked exactly like his voice sounded.

He had to be around nineteen or twenty, with dark blue, beetle-like eyes, neatly combed dirty blonde hair, and shiny praying mantis wings. He was big, too. The navy blue letterman jacket he wore was stretched tightly over a muscular chest and broad shoulders.

That is to say, he was rough, enormous, and looked every bit like the sort of person who'd make catcalls to young teenage girls in a public area.

The group of people he was sitting among were obviously his friends--or perhaps they just went to the same college--because it was clear they liked him. They were all laughing like he'd just told the funniest joke in the world.

"Come on, Garrett, leave the freak alone," Said one of them, a curvy Hydra girl with ruby red lipstick and tangerine orange swirly patterns on her aquamarine wings. But even as she scolded, there was a sick, pearly grin of amusement on her face, which rendered the disapproving words about as effective as trying to douse a fire with gasoline and live dogs.

"Hey, I'm not doing anything wrong!" Beamed Garrett with a smart-alecky 'who, me?' expression. It was the sort of look worn by someone who thinks he's being terribly cute and clever but has failed to realize that once you pass a certain age, the rascal act doesn't work anymore. "I was just saying she's pretty. There's nothing wrong with complimenting people, is there, little hag?"

He puckered up a pair of wet red lips and made some kind of grotesque smacking noise that only passed for a kissing sound in his group's hilarious reality.

Emma didn't budge. She had her fingers now gripped at the edge of her book and was sitting perfectly still, like a rabbit that had just wandered unwittingly into a den of coyotes and only just realized its mistake.

"I'm not a little girl," She forced out, but her voice was quiet and shaky. Her lungs felt constricted with hot iron bands. If she had a panic attack, would they leave her alone? "I'm fifteen." If there had been a 'State the Obvious' contest going on, she'd have won with that sentence in a heartbeat. The fact that she had to even clarify that at all was a testament to how very, very wrong this entire situation was. "And...th-th-thank you...but I-I d-don't want to k-kiss you..."

There was a collective roar as the entire group, Garrett included, exploded into laughter, pounding their fists on the table they were sitting at and making their glasses rattle. A few of them laughed so hard that tears, their glistening easily visible in the grey light outside, started to pour down their cheeks. People were starting to glance over now, and a few children began to giggle along with the college kids, despite clearly not knowing what was going on.

Less visible was the angry, humiliated flush that had started to creep up into Emma's cheeks, and the way her fists had started to tremble. Frustrated by her own inability to be more intimidating than a bunch of wild college delinquents who liked to pick on kids. Of course she would be.

imagine them all bloody and screaming for mercy yes yes yes good good good

Yes, that's good. Now commit and do it.

Eventually, the laughter started to die, and Garrett lifted a hand to wipe the water away from his beetle-blue eyes, wheezing.

"You're a FEISTY little thing, aren't you?" His tone was still jovial, but somewhere deep in that mockery of a friendly voice was a sort of darkness hidden down there like a fishing hook in a slice of bread. "Come on, witch! Don't you want to know what God looks like, since you've strayed so far from him? One hour with me, and you'll be completely purified!"

Emma could only sit there as the entire scene unfolded, her body as stiff as if it were riddled with rigor mortis. She wanted to run or yell or wave her arms or something, but her legs were rooted to the bench she was sitting on; she couldn't even budge. Her mental mask had now slipped irretrievably out of her grasp, leaving the paralyzed panic bare on her face. Her heart was hammering and her hands were clenched so hard that her knuckles had turned pure white, painting the nicks and cuts on them an even brighter red.

It was like watching a horror movie, the sort where you could see exactly what was coming and every inch of you ached to yell, 'Don't open that door!', but knew that no amount of begging would stop the hapless hero on the screen from opening the hell out of that door and being dragged inside, kicking and screaming and completely surprised. Because no matter how obvious it was to the watcher, it wasn't to the hero.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be the hero.

"No." She whispered, just loud enough for the group to hear. "P-please leave me alone."

There was another uproarious bout of laughter over Emma's "spunk." Emma tensed up even more and squeezed her eyes shut, willing this all to go away. But when she opened them again, she was still in the plaza, and Garrett was now in front of her.

Emma flinched backward, barely able to bite back a scream of shock. Garrett smiled down at her and plopped down beside her, slinging two of his four arms around her shoulders.

please please please don't touch me oh god god god

"I bet you're super sexy under all of that," He said, nodding at her flannel and overalls. "Wonder what you'd look like with all it off..."

Why wasn't anyone doing anything?

Emma glanced around frantically, desperately and spotted several people around the plaza, all doing their own thing. But they were listening; she knew they were.

"Shouldn't we do something?" She heard one spotted bat whisper to a cricket sitting beside her.

"She can leave any time she wants," Said the cricket nonchalantly, just shrugging his shoulders, and Emma had to wonder if there was something wrong with him, too. Would a normal person just let something like this happen? "She hasn't been hurt at all. And this'll just teach her to be grateful for the attention she gets. He's just trying to be nice; there's no need to be such a bitch."

The spotted bat pursed her lips, nodded, and fell silent.

"And if you know what's good for you, you won't interfere over there, either."

Emma was stunned. Did he--or any of them--not hear the sickening sexual words floating out of this dark part of the plaza? Had he seriously failed to notice the hunger for younger girls in Garrett's eyes?

Then it occurred to Emma that the man probably had seen it.

He just didn't care .

No one in the plaza seemed to care.

Not enough to do something.

"Come on, baby," Garrett's lips were getting close to Emma's neck. "I've already got at least ten ways I'm going to fuck you."

Emma jerked away and jumped to her feet. Garrett lunged after her, grabbing her by the arm tightly with two of his own, and Emma squealed in pain and fright.

DO SOMETHING!

Ball, book, something-- HELP ME!

A ball a child had been playing with suddenly came flying over and smashed into Garrett's skull, sending him crumpling to the ground. Emma stared with wide eyes and then grabbed her belongings, backing away. Garrett looked up at her, rubbing the side of his head.

"What the fuck?!" He yelled. "What did you do?!"

Emma whimpered and took another step back. Garrett's friends were coming over, now. She had to leave.

"HEY!!" Garrett roared as she began to run out of the plaza. "GET BACK HERE, YOU SLUT!!!"

Emma did not stop. She didn't stop running until she got back to her house and safely inside. Mama wasn't home yet- it was only eleven o'clock. But she desperately wanted Mama now, so she hobbled upstairs and laid down in Mama's room, inhaling her comforting scent of cinnamon and wax through her haze of tears.

imagine them all dead and bloody with maggots and rats crawling over their faces yes yes good good good

One day, she would get her revenge on all of them. On this whole damn city. But for now, she just rested and waited for her Mama.

Try

Tuesday, 24th

Several hours later, long after school was left out for the day, Shelby staggered into her house's mudroom, her arms and legs like rubber, and her sneakers squelching with every step she took. The sun was starting to set, her clothes clung to her skin, and she still felt like her lungs were going to collapse on her rib cage.

She sat down on the floor and began unknotting shoelaces that had tightened with repeated wetting of the damp school field thanks to mist earlier that day. A claw bent backward, her hands shook and cramped, and she dropped her forehead to her knees. Grime scratched between the layers of skin. When she started again, and the laces came loose, she set the wet shoes on the porch, peeled off damp socks, and carefully wiped her feet.

In the bathroom, she climbed into the shower with her clothes on and washed them before removing, rinsing, and hanging them to dry over the rod. As hot water hit her skin, it stung, but her muscles were slowly soothed of their aching tension from Coach Dickinson's and Miss Allen's ruthless punishment. Leaning against the wall, she let the water wash over her, taking rivulets of mud down her legs to circle the drain. She jerked awake as she felt herself sliding along the wall and forced herself to get out, towel off, and dress in fresh clothes.

When she got to her bedroom, there was someone perched on her window sill, staring in at her.

Shelby shrieked in fright and instinctively shot strands of silk from each of her wrists like she thought it would protect her from the peeper. Kevin looked down at where the silk had spattered against the glass, then raised his wings and, voice muffled slightly, said, "Touchdown!"

"You jerk." Shelby growled, opening the window for her boyfriend. "I could have been naked!"

"And me seeing that would be a bad thing how?" Kevin said, slipping inside. "But did you see me use a sports term? I'm a proper jock now! My uncle would be so proud."

Unable to stay mad at him, Shelby laughed and nudged Kevin with one of her wings. She then promptly collapsed face-first into her bed, and it was Kevin's turn to laugh.

"I take it detention and gym still sucks?" Kevin guessed.

Shelby gave him a weak thumbs up. He laughed again and sat beside her, gently rubbing her back.

"You poor thing." He said. "I hope you have learned your lesson or else I will have to exact my own timeout."

Shelby rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I have learned my lesson." She sat up. "I think the guilt I feel is enough of a punishment, in my opinion, and I'm not just saying that because I don't want to run anymore. I genuinely feel awful. It doesn't help that every time I try to make things better with Emma, she just gets scared..."

"Maybe she doesn't want to be helped?" Kevin said. "Or have a friend?"

"Everyone wants a friend," Shelby said. "Even the ones who say they don't."

"Is this still because of what happened on Friday?" Kevin asked. "I didn't know you were that messed up about it."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Oh, yeah. Of course. It would eat me alive. I'd probably drink blood just to pay back what I did, and I can't even produce plasma."

"Exactly!" Shelby sighed. "But... It's more than that. Emma's been bullied and tormented for years, ever since elementary school. I've joined in on it sometimes. And I'm only now realizing how terrible it was and how awful I am and I'm so, so guilty and I just NEED to do one thing right. But every time I try to make things right, or even go near her, the poor thing gets so scared. No matter what I do or say, she just keeps closing herself off even more."

"You really shouldn't beat yourself up over it," Kevin said gently. "You're a kid. Kids do stupid things."

Shelby shook her head ruefully. "No, Kevin, I'm not a kid. I'm eighteen. I'm an adult. Emma is a kid." She paused for a moment, then shook her head again, like she was trying to dislodge all the guilty thoughts sticking to her brain.

"What if I try to be her friend?"

Shelby's head snapped up, and Kevin looked her in the eyes, full sincerity in his gaze, so much love he's ready to shower on his new friend.

"Really?" Shelby asked. "Are you serious?"

Kevin smiled brightly and said, "Yes."

An Attempt 

Wednesday, 25th

Kevin found her in the art room Wednesday morning.

It had taken him a moment--he had to ask around for the girl's whereabouts, but he eventually hiked to the C hallway of the school and entered the art room.

Partially blank papers and dozens of books were lying across four different tables inside the classroom, their shiny black ink illuminated by the yellow glow of a tall lamp in the corner. There were a few notebooks, too, scrawled with drawings of objects and human diagrams. A laptop was on, its white light reaching to the figure clad in a dark blue sweater and a cream skirt that was standing at an easel, painting fervently with a narrow paintbrush. Her dirty blonde hair was shimmering in waves of crimson iridescent from the computer.

Kevin knocked, but she didn't seem to hear him. He waited a moment, almost considering leaving and just telling Shelby he was turned down, then opened the door.

That got her attention.

Emma Nolan whirled around, flipping several book pages from the whoosh of her wings in her panic. Paint from her paintbrush flew like black blood through the air, landing in a spattered line on a sketch of a three-dimensional cube with strange symbols and squiggles radiating off of it. The laptop she had been glancing at was slammed shut, as if she were scared of being caught looking at the content matter. Porn, perhaps? No...Emma definitely was not the type to watch porn...and in such a public place, too.

There was a beat of silence between the two, Kevin blinking in amusement and Emma staring with the eyes of a little white calf about to get its throat cut open.

And then: "Hey."

"H-hello."

"Whatcha painting? Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

Emma shifted uncomfortably, glancing down at the laptop she had her hand planted on firmly, as if she were trying to keep the website from leaking out of the screen. Then, she looked at her canvas and opened one of her strange wings to block it from sight, floundering for an answer.

"N-nothing," She finally replied. "J-just something about, umm--history."

Kevin highly doubted it was about history, but he didn't push it.

He stepped inside the art room fully, closing the door behind him. Emma backed up against the table she was at, fear in her eyes. Kevin noticed and then quickly opened the door again, hopefully letting her know that he wouldn't trap her inside or try anything. Emma relaxed only the tiniest bit.

Up close like this, Kevin realized this was the first time he ever really got a good look at Emma Nolan (because he never bothered to before). The girl before him was far from hideous or monstrous like everybody seemed to say. She had porcelain skin with no hints of acne, but, rather, the old, faded shadows of numerous bruises that were spattered across her soft, youthful features like blue and purple paint that would never truly wash away no matter how hard she scrubbed. She also had very prominent freckles across her nose and cheeks, like the light sprinkling of cinnamon on dough. Her hair was short, shaggy, and dirty blonde, and her eyes were as pale as the moon reflecting on ice, casting dark bags underneath their sockets. Her head was narrow, with hollowed cheeks and big bat ears, the right black and the left cream, that were pinned flat against the top of her head. The dark blue sweater she was wearing practically drowned her body, which lacked a severe amount of muscles and body fat, but still somehow looked fitting for her type of demeanor rather than frame. Feathers the color of the midnight sky were fluffed up on her chest, and her wings were equally as poofy yet strangely beautiful in a hybrid sort of way. Her hands were laced with old burn scars, something Kevin was only just now seeing up close, cobwebs of healed blisters stretching like cracks in glass along frail skin. She smelled like rosemary and butter, reminiscent of her breakfast that morning.

"So..." Kevin began slowly. "Are you feeling any better?"

Emma blinked. "H-huh?"

"From yesterday?" Kevin specified. "You had a seizure in Mr. Glickman's class."

Emma looked a touch embarrassed. "Oh." She said. "Y-yes. I'm fine. Th-that, umm--that happens--sometimes."

"Oh." Kevin frowned. "Are you epileptic?"

"What do you want?"

Was that...frustration in Emma's eyes? No...she was just guarded. Very guarded. She had more walls put up around herself than any normal person should have--not that Emma Nolan was anything but normal. Kevin could see that even without knowing about her Magi, and that made her a little endearing.

"Okay," Kevin said, "Well, I wanted to talk to you. And hopefully this won't sound like something a little kid would say, but do you want to be friends?"

Emma said nothing. Kevin quickly started speaking again.

"If you want. I understand if you don't want to. I can be a little...much, sometimes." He laughed.

Emma closed her eyes in a very long blink, and Kevin could practically see the gears in her head shifting as she processed what had just been said to her. Her forehead creased, lips trembling ever so slightly, nostrils twitching. Then, she opened her eyes again, and Kevin could see so many emotions flashing in those twin blue moons--fear, wonderment, disbelief, glee, confusion. No anger, though. Kevin had expected at least a hint of anger at being disturbed or spoken to over this topic.

"What?"

"My friend. Do you want to be friends?"

"This is sick."

Emma was moving before Kevin had even finished her sentence, like only then she had fully understood the words spoken to her. She began gathering all her papers and books and journals, shoving them into her light brown messenger bag in a very untidy way in her haste. She threw her pens in after them, set her easel aside, and then rushed past Kevin, clutching her bag to her chest instead of slinging it on her shoulder.

"Emma!"

Kevin hurried after her, managing to jump in front of her path before she could get out the door. Emma reared away, fanning her ears in distress, then raised her crest feathers as a threat to get out of her way. Not that Kevin expected her to actually do something to him if he didn’t.

"Emma, hey! Woah. Can we talk?"

Emma looked up at him with barely-contained terror. When she spoke, her words were surprisingly sharp with hidden thorns.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Not at all." Kevin said sincerely.

"I know what this is. And I'm not going to fall for it. Now get out of my way."

"This is just what it is, Emma. And offer. And you can say no if you want to, but I just want you to hear me out first."

That made Emma falter.

"I...I get a choice?"

"Of course."

She blinked several times, as if she were trying to wake herself from a dream she knew would never come true. Then, she tilted her head like a confused puppy and asked, "Why?"

Kevin felt his heart break.

He could see it now, all the years of torment and bullying and loneliness. Fifteen long years without any friends or anyone to laugh with or anyone to lean on when times got rough. He didn't know how Emma did it. When he had moved to Louisiana from Texas when he was eleven, he thought he would never make friends. He felt like his entire life was ruined, that nobody would want to talk to him and like him, and that would be the end of Kevin Shield.

Luckily for him, however, many people at his new school had wanted to be friends with the "cool cowboy," and he found his main clique in the process--although he didn't meet the love of his life, Shelby Gonzalez, until two years later. But if he hadn't made all those friends, if, instead, he was met with ridicule and bullying and abuse, there was no way he would have lived this long.

No wonder Emma looked so miserable all the time. The poor thing was just lonely. She wanted a friend, just like Shelby had said. And Kevin was going to be that friend, no matter how long it took, whether Emma liked it or not.

He would not be taking no for an answer.

"I think you're cool." Kevin said.

"Cool?" Emma echoed. "Me? Really? Come on, Kevin, I know you're smart. Can't you come up with a more believable lie than cool?"

"It isn't a lie." Kevin said patiently. "I do think you're cool. Creative, too. Your poem was really good. And I just think you're a good person in general."

Emma was stunned. "D-did Shelby make you do this?"

"Nope," Kevin began to fiddle with a clay sculpture of a sitting dog. He had stepped out of the way of the door, giving Emma the chance to leave if she wanted to, but she didn't move. "This was my idea. I wanted to do this. I want to be your friend."

Emma sniffled, and Kevin saw that there were tears in her eyes.

"I would love to." She stammered. "I would."

"Then say yes." Kevin urged. "It's okay. Trust me, I'm a great friend, if I do say so myself." And then the clay sculpture's head snapped off, and he shrieked and played hot potato with it before slamming it down onto the shelf like nothing happened.

Emma actually giggled at his panic, and he beamed, considering if he should break more art projects just to hear that wonderful noise. He didn’t think he'd ever heard her laugh before.

"I-I can't." Emma shook her head, looking away. Her giggling had died off easily, like she was used to muting her joy. "It would be-- It wouldn't work out at all. W-we can't-- I can't be with people--"

"Sure you can," Kevin said. "Listen, I know you've been alone for a long time. I don't blame you for being so guarded; I would be, too. But if you can give you me a chance, I promise I won't let you down."

The bell rang, and kids started to filter into the hallway to get to their first-period class. Emma tried to leave, but Kevin opened one wing and blocked her path.

"We're gonna be late for class..." Emma mumbled.

"Will you?" Kevin asked.

"I can't." Emma choked out. She was trying very hard to keep herself from crying, and it was making her voice crack and pitch it a heartbreaking way. "You know I can't. Everyone will laugh at us. They'll laugh at you, you know." She shook her head miserably, whimpering. "They always laugh, Kevin..."

"Then let them," Kevin said, and Emma looked up at him in confusion. He crouched down to her height and looked into her glistening blue eyes. "Because then I'll just get to make them regret it when I beat their asses."

A few tears managed to spill free and streamed down Emma's cheeks, which were dusted with a faint pink blush. She closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath, then whispered, "Okay."

Kevin perked up. "Is that a yes? We're friends now?" His tail feathers began to wag like a happy dog.

Slightly louder this time, more confident, voice thick with tears of joy, "Yes. We're friends now."

"Woohoo! I have a cool friend!" Kevin swept Emma up into a hug, but immediately let her go when she tensed up. "Okay, no hugging yet. Got it. We can work up to that, okay?"

"Okay," Emma said through trembling lips.

"How about..." Kevin gently punched Emma's shoulder with the bend of his wing. "Bam! Wing bump! I am a genius."

Emma giggled. Kevin beamed at her.

"Come on," Kevin said. "Let's get to class."

And Emma whispered, "Thank you."


End file.
